Tim Benz: Forget memes and nicknames, Omar Khan showed guts in a different way in 2024 Steelers' draft

Pittsburgh Steelers general manager Omar Khan has developed a reputation for being more aggressive than his longtime predecessor and mentor Kevin Colbert. Fans of the team sure do love yelling “Khan Artist” and sharing social media clips of Omar from “The Wire” with Khan’s face edited onto them.

For all the praise that Khan got for manufacturing this year’s draft class, though, he didn’t earn it by leaning into that hype and reputation. He didn’t kick any doors down and charge into the draft room, firing-off big-time trades up the board.

He didn’t come into the weekend swinging for the fences, trying to win the headline wars by mortgaging picks for Pro Bowl wide receivers.

Yet.

Instead, Khan did the opposite. He showed guts, rolled the dice and was daring in a different way.

He did nothing. He waited.

Even as the draft board was getting perilously close to picks that they wanted on multiple occasions, Khan surveyed the horizon, flew through the flak and got the target the Steelers wanted without firing off a bunch of ammunition the front office would need later by trading up.

Or, for that matter, he fought off the temptation to get greedy and accumulate more picks by trading back, and maybe miss out on a player they truly desired.

“We had conversations about moving up, and the phone was ringing about moving down,” Khan said after the draft. “Every round we were in (that) we had a pick, we were having conversations about moving up, moving down. It was pretty active.”

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For instance, when the Steelers were holding at Pick No. 20 in the first round, tackle Troy Fautanu (Washington), and center Graham Barton (Duke) were both on the board. The Steelers were believed to have coveted both players to fill positions of need on the depth chart.

The Seattle Seahawks, for instance, at pick 16 had been connected to both players, especially since Fautanu played down the road at Washington. But through 14 picks, no defensive players had been selected. A run on such players was sure to come eventually. Plus, even if Barton and Fautanu were to come off the board, other good tackles and the two remaining top centers (Oregon’s Jackson Powers-Johnson and West Virginia’s Zach Frazier) were well within range.

Maybe then a trade-back would’ve been worthwhile.

Sure enough, four of the next five picks — including Seattle’s (Texas defensive tackle Byron Murphy II) — were on defense. The lone exception was the Cincinnati Bengals taking another one of the tackles, Georgia’s Amarius Mims, at No. 18. When the Rams went defense at No. 19 with Florida State pass rusher Jared Verse, Khan knew the Steelers had their choice of two players that they badly needed.

Now Fautanu is a Steeler.

“Every one of those 10 minutes was the longest 10 minutes of my life,” Khan said of the clock ticking by with the picks approaching his own.

That said, Khan held a steady rudder and found himself in a position to do the same thing as pick No. 51 approached in Round 2. Frazier was still on the board. Barton and Powers-Johnson were both gone, as were multiple other picks the Steelers would’ve loved to snag at defensive back and wide receiver. I don’t think any Steelers fans would’ve faulted Khan if he had gotten itchy enough to hatch a trade and move up to secure Frazier, given the gaping hole at center.

But knowing how many other needs existed that the club wanted to fill out before the end of Saturday’s selection process, Khan didn’t want to give up any picks to jump up the board.

Nor did he want to sacrifice future selections, keeping in mind that the franchise may want to be active on the trade market for an impact receiver or defensive back if he went with O-linemen with the first two picks.

So, he waited, and got his guy again for the second day in a row.

“You have no choice but to be patient on draft weekend. It all comes down to what players are there when you’re picking,” Khan said on Saturday evening after their draft ended. “You try to make the right decisions, whether to move up, move down, or take a pick. For me, I know we made some moves last year (trading up to get Broderick Jones), but when there’s a good player there, it’s hard to trade away.”

Standing pat and being patient doesn’t make for great nickname usage or memes. If Khan does get aggressive and figures out a way to swing a trade for a starting receiver or DB between now and the end of training camp, maybewe’ll start to see those things trending on social media once more.

For now, though, the headlines are mainly just about the players the Steelers did land — and Khan seems just fine with that.

LISTEN: Tim Benz, Joe Rutter and Chris Adamski discuss the Steelers’ draft