After firing Quinn, let's go get some payback from the Steelers front office

Long-time Lions sufferers may recall that Kevin Colbert spent the '90s in the Lions front office, at a time when the team made the playoffs with decent regularity. Colbert lost a power struggle with Lions GM Chuck Schmidt and moved on to Pittsburgh.

Guess who got the better of that deal?

Colbert went on to architect the Steelers teams that won Super Bowls in '06 and '09. As is The Steeler Way, he’s now been there forever (except when they do that, they do it with good, competent people; not Russ Thomas and Matt Millen and Bob Quinn). So Colbert is also the architect of this year’s 10-0 Pittsburgh team.

I marvel at the Steelers. Year in and year out, their roster is so stocked, so deep, across the board. They clearly know what they are doing in personnel. Their drafting is stellar. And their pro pickups are, too. Minkah Fitzpatrick, anybody?

So, let’s get some payback from the ruinous horror of Colbert’s departure. Let’s find our next GM out of his department.

But who?

The Steelers’ player personnel coordinator is Dan Rooney Jr. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that the Lions won’t be able to entice him away.

Omar Khan is their Vice President of Football & Business Administration. He’s been in the front office since 2001, so he’s been instrumental in all that success. But reading up on him, his specialty within the organization seems to be business administration, cap management, etc. Which doesn’t necessarily exclude him – can we get him to replace the Fords’ butler, Rod Wood? But I think I’d prefer someone who has been intimately involved in that sweet player procurement.

Brandon Hunt is their Pro Scouting Coordinator. He’s been there since 2010. He interviewed for the Eagles front-office job in 2016.

This article indicates the Steelers’ succession plan for Colbert would probably have Hunt as the front-runner. BUT Colbert isn’t that old, mid-60s. Could Hunt get tired of waiting for his shot?

I’ve got to imagine the Steelers, the way they retain and treat their staff, is probably not an organization one walks away from lightly.

Hunt would definitely be a target for the Lions.

And how 'bout Phil Kreidler, their college scouting coordinator? Go scroll through some Steelers drafts over the past decade. Day-umm! They’re like the anti-Mayhew, the anti-Quinn.

Kreidler has been a scout with the Steelers since '92 (!!) He was promoted to college scouting coordinator in 2003. He’s a Steelers lifer, and clearly had a major hand in ALL of their post-'70s success.

Here’s a nice article from last year, with the Steelers talking about their third-round pick WR Diontae Johnson. A “why you should be excited about this pick” article right after the draft.

General Manager Kevin Colbert, like Drake, was effusive in is praise of Johnson.

“Diontae Johnson is a nice insider-, outside-capable receiver that does both punt and kick returns,” Colbert assessed. "When we talked about Diontae in our meetings, Phil Kreidler, our scouting coordinator, when he read his report on Diontae was just kind of funny. I know Coach Drake used the same terms, but (Kreidler) must’ve said ‘natural’ five times.

“It’s just what we believe, that this kid is just a natural football talent.”

Johnson currently looks like a pretty good player. They certainly know how to draft WRs in Pittsburgh: A. Brown, JuJu, Diontae, James Washington, Chase Claypool.

A piece from 2017 draft time gives insight into how Colbert and Kreidler approach drafting players.

“The best piece of advice I ever got was ‘don’t look for negatives. Keep looking for positives until you know it’s not there”, Colbert said. It’s a pretty intuitive idea, but I think it helps to shape a certain mentality. You can become blinded if you identify a fault in a prospect and dismiss him too hastily.

“We always want to focus on what they can do rather than what they can’t”, Kreidler said in following up, “because if they can do a lot of positive things, then we can coach and improve some of their deficiencies.”

But try Googling anything about Kreidler, or him interviewing anywhere. It’s a big blank. Do Colbert and the Steelers want to keep it that way? Is he someone just not interested in the big chair, and happy where he is in life?

If I’m the Lions, I’m putting Kreidler and Hunt on my short-list for interviews. Get 'er done.

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Kreidler sounds interesting. Given our market we likely have to be an excellent drafting franchise in order to have success.

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Colbert signed a 1-year extension with the Steelers back in February.

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Awesome stuff, thank you for posting and sharing that info. I agree, I’d love you see someone from the Steelers cone here, or Colbert come back

Yep he would be my 1st choice, I would offer him President of football operations and give him a raise, Colbert, that is.

If I am not mistaken, he was fired with the Millen regime, one of the 1st things Millen did

Colbert isn’t leaving a top 3 franchise. Steeler people don’t typically leave bc of the reality that if you do a good job you have a career there. It’s a culture thing that the Lions will
never understand bc it starts with the ownership.

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Good point. And since we can’t grab him, I will have to cancel my order for a custom “Fire Colbert” shirt.

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Lions had Colbert and let him walk. He had a position of power and they let him walk, they couldn’t identify his talent.

I mean seriously, Tunch and Wolf were talking about it on the radio. Dudes know if you want to raise your family in one place make a really good living for 10-15 years…then just do a good job and you won’t get fired. 3 head coaches in 30 plus years. My college mentor’s son in law is a lawyer and has been pegged as the heir to the throne as the Steelers lawyer as his firm has been handling their business for decades. Met him a few times, the way the Steelers do business is just different. It is genuine. Go to a Steelers game and you have a good chance of running into an old Steeler and they act human. They are approachable and real.

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A name to keep an eye on is Seahawks VP of player personnel, Trent Kirchner.

He was set to interview in 2015 right after Quinn. Apparently we were so blown away by Quinn, that the Lions cancelled their interview with Kirchner. :man_facepalming:

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As much as this makes some sense, is it not just the same idea as the Bob Quinn hire from the Pats? Take an available guy from a winning program, who probably isn’t the guy that makes the winning happen.

I liked the ambition of hiring Quinn and Patricia, but the lessons we’ve learned over the last three or five years show that it takes a lot more than just dropping in people from winning organisations. They have to be ready to step up to the top job, they have to be considerate of the differences between what they’re leaving and what they’re arriving into, they have to be schematically flexible, they have to be willing to make the most of the resources that are already there even if they don’t fit the long term plan, they need to evolve their thinking way beyond simply making as close a copy as possible of the team they’ve left.

We hired Quinn and Patricia to do things Belichick’s way and it didn’t work. I’d rather see us give an opportunity to someone who has his (or her!) own ideas rather than someone who wants to clone a successful program. There are lots of ways to win in the NFL, I want the Lions to at least try to forge their own path and their own identity. Bill Belichick did things his way and established a long term winning program. Ozzie Newsome did things his way and established a long term winning program. Kevin Colbert did things his way and established a long term winning program. Andy Reid. Mickey Loomis and Sean Payton. John Schneider and Pete Carroll. They all built good programs organically, and have themselves evolved and grown with their programs to adapt to the changes in the game.

Take someone from the Steelers by all means, but only if they’re not going to be rooted in rebooting the Steelers.

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Yes! Yes! Yes! Nailed it!

As long as Ford family is here? we won’t get anybody from the Steelers…

My thought is, Kreidler has been at this so long – decades longer than Quinn – that he will be very tied into NFL circles. He will know what he doesn’t know, and who to help him with that.

I don’t say hire him just because he’s part of a winning organization. But interview him for that reason. And find out in the interview process if he can handle the big job, with your organization.

Great take Slay.

You can say they evolved, but have they really? They all know what they want in players. Are there changes here or there in their systems? Well, we can see Reid favoring pure speed more than in years past. We can see the RPO creeping into playbooks more. We’re certainly seeing more competent, mobile QBs, which were rarities for years. But at the end of the day, each team you mentioned has/had identities that their people knew how to draft for. That is not established here. Whoever does establish the Lions’ identity will have already been steeped in a similar environment for years.

I don’t trust the guys in the front office with the Seahawks just yet. Many of the genius like moves they made were all Pete Carroll knowing more about those guys than any other GM by following some of them since they were in junior high and spending time in their living rooms with their families.

If they start making great moves again (and not just relying on Wilson to be all world) I will listen to the idea of bringing one of their guys in. The main thing is to watch the team operate without Pete having such an inside advantage that he used to the fullest.

Their defense is Wretched. After all the Legion of Boom guys moved on, the backfilling has failed and I’d be very worried Kirchner is a big part of that fail.

DK pick in rd 2 was great, but last couple years overall? Very Quinn-y

100% agree. The scheme/system doesn’t matter, it is about adjustments and quality of execution. When a great players falls in your lap on draft day, you pick him and adjust to him

Feels like I’m reading my post from a few days ago in the Quinn thread. Hunt/ then snag their DC Butler for HC.

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