Steelers Nearly Hired Doug Whaley Before Ultimately Choosing Omar Khan; Despite Rumors Team Never Considered Khan and Hunt Co-GM Roles

The Pittsburgh Steelers finally hired a new General Manager this week as they announced Omar Khan as their choice on Wednesday. It was a decision that came after three months of interviews with 16 different candidates. Of those first 16 only 6 moved onto the second round.

Of the 6 that made it into what ultimately was the final round of interviews, only one had prior General Manager experience. That was former Buffalo Bills' General Manager Doug Whaley. He is a Pittsburgh native and former Pitt Panthers defensive back. Whaley spent a decade working under Kevin Colbert in the Steelers' personnel department. He was named assistant General Manager in Buffalo in 2010 and was promoted to the GM role in 2013. Under his leadership, Buffalo went 30-34 in four seasons, two with Doug Marrone and two with Rex Ryan as head coach. After the 2017 Draft Whaley was let go.

But it sounds like the number one priority for the Steelers was to retain Khan. It sounds like they explored a lot of options to try to find the right fit. Whether it was hiring someone else as General Manager and getting Khan to still stay. Or whether hiring Khan and surrounding him with the right fit of front office staff was the better decision. They ultimately chose to promote Khan and put a strong scouting support system around him. And they were forced to do that because when Brandon Hunt didn't receive the promotion, he decided to leave town. It is believed that Hunt will take a job with the Philadelphia Eagles in their scouting department.

“You know, I, I don’t know how they would have ordered it, how they would have stood on a metal podium, but I think it’s telling that Doug Whaley got a second interview. I think from what I was told about the process, I think they were very impressed with him and if they wanted to go with a traditional GM tenant he would have been their man,” Pryor said on 93.7 The Fan “But I don’t know what that would have meant for the build-up of the rest of the department because the point is they didn’t want to lose Omar Khan. I don’t think they wanted to lose Brandon Hunt, but they weren’t able to hold those two guys and then they essentially do some sort of trade with Philly to bring in Andy Weidl."

Andy Weidl gives Khan someone with a strong scouting background. With Weidl they hired Sheldon White who also has spent most of his executive front office experience on the scouting side. White spent most of his time in the NFL with the Detroit Lions before finishing the 2021 season as a scout for the Washington Commanders.

“Because I think there was a scenario where they wanted to hire Omar Khan as GM and Brandon Hunt in that kind of assistant role. Obviously that didn’t work out,” Pryor added. “But the feeling I get is that Doug Whaley was a very strong candidate. I don’t know how close they would have been to giving him that title, but I know they were very interested in him. That’s why they got him called in and they really liked what he had to say.”

An interesting tidbit from Aditi Kinkhabwala from last week was that the team never approached Khan or Hunt about if they'd be okay in a co-General Manager role with each other. It was rumored in the past month that the Steelers favored promoting both Khan and Hunt to General Manager because of their different skill sets. Hunt of course as a scout, and Khan as the business side of things.

The Steelers must have decided that it wouldn't work for either party and didn't broach the topic.

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