{"id":870767,"date":"2026-04-20T19:15:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/870767\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T19:15:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:15:26","slug":"omar-khan-dont-take-steelers-pre-draft-visit-history-for-granted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/870767\/","title":{"rendered":"Omar Khan: Don’t Take Steelers Pre-Draft Visit History for Granted"},"content":{"rendered":"

2026 NFL Draft<\/a>\u2022Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"OmarPittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy and general manager Omar Khan at McCarthy’s introductory press conference on Jan. 27, 2026. — Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

PITTSBURGH \u2014 Unlike in years past under Mike Tomlin<\/a>, the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 brass got to only one pro day during this year\u2019s pre-draft process. Tomlin and general manager Omar Khan<\/a> were regular visitors at the Georgia, Ohio State, Alabama and other big name college programs pro days. <\/p>\n

So why did new head coach Mike McCarthy and Khan go to only one pro day (which was Georgia)? It turns out it had to do with McCarthy being a new hire. Khan emphasized that attending pro days remain important for the evaluation process. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo. It\u2019s just part of the (coaching) transition, the timing of some of these pro days, certain things didn\u2019t work out,\u201d Khan said. \u201cIt\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to the coaching change, Khan and McCarthy also did not attend the Senior Bowl, with Andy Weidl<\/a> leading the Steelers\u2019 contingent there. Weidl usually runs the show for the Steelers at the Shrine Bowl.<\/p>\n

Under Khan, all three of the Steelers\u2019 first round picks \u2014 Broderick Jones, Troy Fautanu and Derrick Harmon \u2014 came in for pre-draft visits. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that this year\u2019s first-round pick was a pre-draft visitor. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of that might be coincidence or comfort that you feel. I wouldn\u2019t say that our pick would have to be someone that was in for a 30 visit,\u201d Khan said. <\/p>\n

The Steelers brought in 33 players for pre-draft visits. Three of those visitors were local products, so they did not count against the 30 allowed visitors. <\/p>\n

Khan shut down the notion that some of the players brought in for pre-draft visits were a smokescreen. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can tell you, these guys that were here, were brought in for a reason, and smokescreen\u2019s not one of them,\u201d Khan said. <\/p>\n

Alan Saunders provided reporting from Pittsburgh. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: 2026 NFL Draft<\/a> Mike McCarthy<\/a> Omar Khan<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> Steelers News<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2026 NFL Draft\u2022Steelers News Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy and general manager Omar Khan at McCarthy’s introductory…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870768,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[4955,7,7866,6,1256,520,57,2360,426,2395],"class_list":{"0":"post-870767","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-mike-mccarthy","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-omar-khan","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-steelers-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116438639889457676","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}