LATROBE, Pa. -- When the Steelers hired Andy Weidl to be their first assistant general manager earlier this year, there were some questions as to what his duties would be and what he would bring to the table helping Omar Khan do his job.
Those were largely cleared up Tuesday when Weidl spoke with the media here at Saint Vincent College for the first time.
Weidl, who joined the Steelers after a successful 6-year run with the Eagles, the last three of which were as vice president of player personnel, has a long-standing friendship with Khan that dates back to their days together with the Saints in 2000.
The two attended each the other's wedding and Weidl, a native of Mt. Lebanon, introduced Khan to many of his family and friends when Khan was hired by the Steelers in 2001. So, the two of them working in conjunction with each other won't be an issue.
"When he moved up here in 2001, I introduced him to my friends I grew up with and my family, and he got to know them and had those same group of friends," Weidl said. "Just as we’ve grown in this business together, our friendship is a strong bond. He was there that night when I met my wife, he was at my wedding, we were at his wedding. He’s just a great guy, a high character person. He’s really smart, he’s really savvy, and I just have a lot of respect and loyalty to him. You just couldn’t find a better opportunity. To me, this is an amazing opportunity with a great organization and great people."
It should be a symbiotic relationship. Khan will continue to handle the business side of things, while Weidl will run the scouting department.
Given their close personal relationship, there shouldn't be any clashes there.
"I’ll be working with Omar daily and working with our scouts, staying in communication with them," Weidl said. "The one thing I've known, the place where we’ve had the most success is that we’re an extension of the coaching staff. I tell it to our scouts, we’re an extension of Coach (Mike) Tomlin and his staff. We’re going to go out and find players who fit the job description and fit the type of culture in the program that he has here. That’s important, that you have that alignment. And when you have that working and you have that alignment, great things are possible."
Weidl brings an interesting background to the equation.
After serving as scouting intern for the Steelers in 1998 and 1999, he was hired by the Saints, working as a scout for them from 2000 through 2004 under Mickey Loomis. Then, he moved on to Baltimore, where he spent 11 years watching Ozzie Newsome run drafts. Finally, he moved on to the Eagles for the past six years.
In Pittsburgh, he got the opportunity to work under Tom Donahoe and Bill Nunn, learning from them. Loomis has long considered a very aggressive general manager, one willing to max out his credit cards to try to put a winning team on the field. Newsome and the Ravens have been masters of acquiring draft picks over the years, including playing the compensatory pick game very well, while also relying on analytics to help in scouting. Eagles GM Howie Roseman is considered a mix in both of those philosophies, being aggressive in the trade market while also relying on analytics.
Many have felt the Steelers haven't used analytics enough either on the field or when drafting. But Weidl admits that it can't be the all you look at when it comes to football.
"I think if it’s applied and you can find a usefulness, it’s a tool," Weidl said. "It’s not the end-all-be-all, but there’s things you can find in it that can be helpful, just little things here and there. I think the key is to find and apply. There’s so much data, there are so many stats right now. You can get inundated with it, and I think the key is to find the important things, find the important data, how you can apply it to what your program is and what’s important to your team and your program."
The key will be meshing his view on things with the tried and true way the Steelers have done things under retired GM Kevin Colbert. There will be subtle changes and adjustments, but Weidl and his scouting department aren't going to try to reinvent the wheel.
"We’re going to try to keep building upon what he’s built here. He’s won two Super Bowls, he’s one of the best to ever do it," Weidl said of Colbert. "We’re going to add to the process, we’re going to enhance where we can. Just talking to the guys that worked with him, and knowing him being on the road, we want to make him proud. What our product is here and the type of players we bring in and keep building on that, but we’re going to do some things with communication a little bit more, there’s some tools we’re going to do now. But we’re going to just continue to find Steelers, and that’s the goal."
• Tomlin has a big say in who the Steelers draft and that's not going to change and wasn't going to change, regardless of who runs the team's scouting.
As always, Art Rooney II will have final say over every move, but they'll still be Steelers moves.
"I’ve been here for two and a half months and the one thing that’s pretty evident about Coach Tomlin is that he is a passionate and he is a football lover. He loves the scouting aspect of it and he’s great to be around," Weidl said. "The energy he brings, the passion he brings, his love of the game. He’s a great historian of the game, too. He’s somebody you can learn from and he’s just fun to be around because he loves it. It just oozes out of him. He's going to be involved in it, obviously, and I’m looking forward to working with him and collaborating going forward on this process."
• After rotating with Robert Spillane a lot in training camp practices, Devin Bush didn't seem to rotate nearly as much -- if at all with him on Tuesday. Bush was on the field next to Myles Jack in the first-team defense.
Bush spoke to the media for the first time in this camp on Tuesday. And once again he seemed to stick his foot in his mouth when talking about his future.
"It’s a business," Bush said, regarding the Steelers declining his fifth-year option. "I mean, I’m still going to be in the NFL. So, we’ll see."
Complain about it all you want, but he's right. Regardless of what happens with him this year, he'll get another shot with someone next season -- even if he has a bad season in 2022. Remember, Jarvis Jones got another chance with the Cardinals after his rookie contract was up with the Steelers.
Now, whether or not Bush does anything with that opportunity is up to him.
I'll continue to say it until I'm blue in the face that he wasn't as bad as some are portraying in last Saturday's preseason win over the Seahawks. Rewatching that game, I counted two or three times where he could have been credited with at least an assist on a tackle. But he wasn't.
Oh well. Bush hasn't been bad here at training camp. But he also hasn't made any splash plays, either. But the coaching staff is not unhappy with him.
They have, however, seemingly come to the realization that Spillane can't cover anyone in the open field. And that's what today's NFL is all about.
All of that said, Saturday's game at Jacksonville will be a big one for Bush -- and the Steelers. It would be nice to see him make a play or two while playing with the first-team defense, not running around behind a makeshift defensive line.
• In Backs on Backers Tuesday, Terrell Edmunds was used in the drill. That's the first time I can remember that happening since he's been here.
That tells me the Steelers plan on using Edmunds as a blitzer more -- perhaps as a dime linebacker.
We'll see.
• Kenny Pickett got the first opportunity to run a two-minute offense Tuesday, with Mason Rudolph running it with the second group.
Technically, that would constitute the first "first-team" snaps Pickett has gotten in this camp. But realize that it means that Pickett will likely be on the field at the end of the first half Saturday against the Jaguars, while Rudolph will be out there at the end of the game.
Pickett did have a nice pass down the sideline to George Pickens for a big gain to the 14, but the offense stalled from there.
• All of that said, Pickett has continued to look more comfortable every day running the offense -- though neither he nor Rudolph got their group in the end zone in the two-minute drill.
Pickett did have two touchdown passes in Seven Shots, rolling to his right and hitting Anthony McFarland for a score on his first pass, then connecting with Connor Heyward in the middle of the end zone on his second.
Mitch Trubisky started and threw a pair of TD passes to Pat Freiermuth, while Rudolph hit a quick slant to Tyler Vaughns for a score.
All three of the quarterbacks belong in the NFL. After the first week of practice here, when Trubisky and Pickett struggled, there was some question to that.
• McFarland looks so different in this camp than he has in previous ones. In his first two seasons, he was all arms and legs with a lot of unnecessary movement when he took a handoff.
Now, he just hits the hole and goes, using his best attribute -- his speed.
And he's caught the ball really well in this camp. He'll have a role on this team.
• It's a shame about Anthony Miller and Karl Joseph.
As I tweeted in the morning, both were lost for the season to injuries. Miller has a season-ending shoulder injury, while Joseph suffered a fractured ankle Saturday night against the Seahawks.
Miller was likely going to make this roster and has a nice rapport with Trubisky. Joseph, meanwhile, was always the first guy on and last guy off the field all spring, working hard to reclaim his career.
Joseph might not have made this roster, but he was likely to play for someone in 2022.
Their injuries just show why teams don't make rash moves and cut or trade players early in camp. Today's excess of players at a position is tomorrow's dearth when injuries start to hit.
The news doesn't appear to be as bad regarding rookie Calvin Austin III. He was in a walking boot early in the day, but by the time practice was taking place here later in the day, the boot was off and he was on the field catching passes on the side.
That's a good sign for the speedy rookie.
• I'm told the main issues with the offensive line in Saturday's game came down to communication and not correctly identifying who the Mike linebacker was all the time. That led to some pass rushers being passed off to -- nobody.
That's something that's correctable as the line continues to play together.
There's also a feeling some of the mistakes made are easily correctable in terms of better blocking technique. The general feeling about the line overall is one that it will continue to get better.
But the coaching staff was very pleased with the run blocking.
• Jaylen Warren was carrying a football with him everywhere Tuesday, tucked high and tight.
It's an old-school approach to correcting a fumbling issue. He had one in the game and also had another last week.
Those can't happen if he wants to make this team. Often, rugged young backs like Warren have to learn that sometimes it's better to go down rather than continuing to fight for yardage. That might work in college, but guys in the NFL are too good. They'll strip the ball out.
