INDIANAPOLIS – Former Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin was a ubiquitous presence throughout the pre-draft process. Whether it was front and center at the Senior Bowl or at various pro days, Tomlin was heavily involved in finding the next batch of Steelers. With Tomlin stepping down and Mike McCarthy now the Steelers’ head coach, Omar Khan doesn’t believe the head coach’s role will change when it comes to the draft process.
“We’ve been grinding since [McCarthy] started. It’s been nonstop,” Khan told local reporters Tuesday at the NFL Scouting Combine. “And I guess you could say we’re playing catch up on some things, but he’s prepared. We’re ready to go, doing the planning process for pro days.”
Khan said that McCarthy’s role in the draft process will be “very, very similar” to Tomlin’s and that the two will attend pro days and taking prospects to dinners as Khan did with Tomlin.
“Absolutely. That’s an important part of it, just for us to get to know those guys and know if those guys are Steelers or not,” Khan said.
Not every coach is as involved in the draft process as Tomlin was, so it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility for McCarthy to not take as active as a role. But throughout his career, it’s something that he’s taken an interest in and been involved in, and that won’t change in Pittsburgh.
We won’t truly know if McCarthy will be as involved as Tomlin until the pro day circuit commences, but it sounds as if that’s the plan and Khan intimated as much by specifically mentioning the pro day process. While McCarthy isn’t doing any media in Indianapolis, he’s part of the Steelers contingent here, and he and Khan did their first round of interviews with prospects on Monday night.
Even if McCarthy’s involvement matches that of Tomlin’s, what we don’t know is if the team will value the same sort of traits it did under Tomlin. We’ve been able to play “Blue’s Clues” to figure out what type of player the Steelers liked in the draft with Tomlin. That could certainly change under McCarthy, and it adds another element to this pre-draft cycle.
But Khan has always been steadfast in his belief that the team needs to find players with “Steelers DNA.” While the physical makeup of what the team covets might change, the character of what makes up a Steelers player won’t.
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