Tim Benz: Plenty for Steelers to learn from outside candidates in general manager search

When Kevin Colbert leaves his post as Steelers general manager after this spring’s NFL Draft, he’ll leave behind a 22-year legacy of constructing teams that went to three Super Bowls, won two Vince Lombardi trophies and qualified for the playoffs 14 times.

He’ll also leave behind a legacy of essentially saying “no comment” in the nicest possible way in the most friendly 30-second sound bite form imaginable.

Unless — for whatever reason — a direct answer to a question was in the best interest of the organization, Colbert mastered the art of revealing no information, but at the same time giving the reporter who asked the question just enough to get by and not feel cheated by attending the press conference.

In other words, remember how Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford handled the media? Now picture the exact opposite.

Rutherford acted as if saying “no comment” would result in his organization receiving a fine or something. Rutherford often gave up information even when reporters didn’t know it was there to be had. He just didn’t seem to care.

So it should surprise none of us that Colbert is handling questions about who will replace him in the manner that he is. Specifically, if the person who takes his job will be from outside the organization or if it will be one of the two internal candidates: vice president of football and business administration Omar Khan or pro scouting coordinator Brandon Hunt.

“We have two great internal candidates,” Colbert said Monday. “There are several guys outside of our organization that are very qualified. … There are a lot of capable people.”

That is as Colbert of a quote as you will get. But a further comment from Colbert got some people guessing that the team may be thinking about hiring someone from a different club.

“We always have to be open to new ways of doing things and more current ways of doing things,” Colbert said. “I encourage our young scouts to push me in that regard. The better solution may be outside the organization. We don’t know.”

A few folks took that last part of the quote to mean that the Steelers are leaning away from simply promoting Khan or Hunt or splitting the general manager duties between the two men.

Well, that and the fact that Steelers have reportedly interviewed at least eight outside candidates:

• ESPN analyst Louis Riddick

• Indianapolis Colts assistant general manager Ed Dodds

• Tennessee Titans vice president of player personnel Ryan Cowden

• Los Angeles Chargers director of player personnel JoJo Wooden

• Green Bay Packers co-director of player personnel John Wojciechowski

• Indianapolis Colts college scouting director Morocco Brown

• Carolina Panthers assistant general manager Dan Morgan

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers vice president of player personnel John Spytek

Indeed, that kind of evidence exists. To assume Colbert was leading us with his quote, though? I’m not ready to go there.

Especially with the prospect of Colbert sticking around in some sort of advisory position as part of the equation, I’m still betting that the Steelers are leaning toward promoting from within.

The extensive list of outside interviewees accomplishes two other goals along the way. It allows the Steelers to say that they were diligent about examining options who didn’t currently have an office on South Water Street.

And, perhaps more importantly, it allows the team to pick the brains of those who work for other organizations. It maybe gives Art Rooney II, Colbert and coach Mike Tomlin a view of how other organizations do things.

With success often comes comfort in your own process. Comfort in the process often leads to inflexibility for change or a refusal to investigate different ways of doing things.

The Steelers had a lot of success between Colbert’s first year in 2000 and 2010. Not as much since then. In fact, no postseason success to speak of since beating Kansas City in the divisional round of the 2016 playoffs.

What does being flexible in football front office terms mean? Specifically for the Steelers?

Maybe it means reconsidering how active the club should be in the first wave of free agency. Especially in a year when it has more salary cap space than normal. Maybe it’s a shakeup of how they rank draft prospects or build their draft boards.

Perhaps it is recalculating how they want to structure contracts for existing veterans or how they want to build offensive and defensive schemes to stay current with the modern mold of talent that’s coming out of college.

Yeah. All that.

Rooney, Colbert and coaches Bill Cowher and Tomlin had a lot of success doing things their way since Heinz Field opened in 2001. To the tune of just one season below .500 in that span of time.

But for as good as those teams were, just once since 2010 did they find themselves still alive on Conference Championship weekend. And nine times in the last 11 years, the season ended without a playoff victory.

The more I say this stuff out loud, the more I want to believe those who are trying to read into Colbert’s quotes. The more I dwell on those considerations, the more I believe a fresh outside view is necessary.

Yet, the more I think about it, the more I believe that’s why the net has been cast as wide as it has in this search. Absorb all the data possible through multiple interviews. Take in all the information you can gather. Steal ideas and give them to the in-house people you trust.

That’s what my gut is telling me will happen. But that’s all I’ve got. My gut. What else am I going to do? Parse Colbert’s words for some invisible Easter egg of information?

Where’s Rutherford when we need him?