Omar Khan certainly feels the frustration from Pittsburgh Steelers fans over the organization’s lack of a playoff win for nine years.

He understands that fan perspective because he’s lived it as a fan. Actually, to a much higher degree.

Now the Steelers’ general manager, Khan was born in New Orleans in 1977, a decade after the now-beloved Saints were.

It would be another decade, though, before the Saints made the playoffs. And it would be 13 more years before the franchise won a playoff game.

That victory — 31-28 against the defending Super Bowl champion St. Louis Rams at the Louisiana Superdome — erased 33 years of angst for the city of New Orleans, 23 years for Khan.

For Khan, though, the personal joy was enhanced (perhaps even overtaken) by the professional gratification he received. Fresh out of college, Khan was employed in the Saints’ football operations department.

“It’s hard to believe that it was 25 years ago,” Khan said last week. “I grew up a big Saints fan. For me, that year was really special because that was the first year that the Saints ever won a playoff game.”

Calling the plays on offense for that playoff victory? A then-37-year-old first time coordinator whose status as a rising star would be solidified via winning the USA Today NFC Assistant Coach of the Year award for that season.

A man named Mike McCarthy.

McCarthy, of course, was named the Steelers’ new head coach last week. Khan was one of the two most significant people asking the questions when McCarthy interviewed for the gig Jan. 21.

“I did feel very comfortable from the moment that I was able to sit down with (Steelers president Art Rooney II) and Omar,” McCarthy said last week. “And that’s a connection I know where I am in my life and in my career.

“The GM/head coach relationship is critical, and I couldn’t be paired with a better guy.”

The Steelers GM/coach relationship has more than a quarter century of history to build upon, dating to those 2000 Saints.

New Orleans was on a streak of seven consecutive non-playoff seasons and had gone 18-46 over the prior four years when it hired Jim Haslett as head coach in 2000. Haslett, a Pittsburgh native, had been the Steelers’ defensive coordinator.

Haslett, in turn, hired another Pittsburgher, McCarthy — then the Green Bay Packers’ quarterbacks coach — to coordinate the offense.

“I remember the attention to detail that (McCarthy) used to put into everything he did,” Khan said, “and that still resonates with me today. It was a good year, a good experience.”

In his first gig as an NFL play-caller, McCarthy guided the Saints to a top-10 ranking in total offense despite starting the season with journeyman Jeff Blake at quarterback and ending it with rookie fourth-round pick Aaron Brooks at quarterback.

The following season with McCarthy calling the plays, Brooks ranked fourth in the NFL in passing yards — the three guys ahead of them are now in the Hall of Fame — and tied for fifth in touchdown passes.

McCarthy’s reputation as a “quarterback guru” was born, and it has persisted throughout his tenure as an NFL play-caller for most of the two-plus decades since as coordinator for the Saints through 2004, for the San Francisco 49ers the following season and as head coach of the Packers (2006-18) and Dallas Cowboys (2020-24).

McCarthy, who said he will call the plays for the Steelers, recalled his first experience doing so in the pros. It came for those 2000 Saints, a team for which Khan played a role.

“I just remember the first impression of Omar,” McCarthy said. “You get hired, and things are going 100 miles an hour, and it was my first time being a coordinator. Omar had worked down in the personnel department and worked with (compliance with the salary cap).

“Jim Haslett asked if I wanted him to work with us on offense. It was awesome. I think it opened up his eyes to what coaches and players really put into it. I always admired (Khan). You could see right away he was going to be very successful, very bright, hardworking. And I think we’ve just always been connected since then.”

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