Pittsburgh Steelers fans have been raving about the job that Omar Khan has done during his first year as general manager, including trading Chase Claypool to the Chicago Bears for the first pick in the second round of the 2023 NFL Draft, which turned into Joey Porter Jr. However, the Steelers were very close to losing Khan over a year before he was hired to be the GM of the Steelers. In fact, Khan was working on a deal to work elsewhere. That deal was thwarted by one of the most hated executives in NFL history.
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Khan was one of the candidates to be the GM of the Houston Texans and the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers turned him down, but Cal McNair was clearly intrigued by Khan's abilities as an executive and wanted to make him the Texans' GM. After Bill O'Brien was fired as both head coach and GM, the Texans needed someone to try and build the Texans back up. McNair even chose Khan over all of the other considerations to be the GM and went into contract negotiations with him.
McNair suddenly halted contract negotiations with Khan and instead hired Nick Caserio, who was an executive for the New England Patriots. Caserio is also the same person that the Texans tried tampering with and resulted in Brian Gaine's firing. After the Patriots threatened lawsuit, the Texans tried a "GM by committee," and eventually just hired O'Brien to take on the GM role. Clearly, someone in the organization wanted Caserio so bad that they would order contract negotiations with another candidate to halt.
Why did Caserio get the job over Khan?
The man that wanted Caserio over Khan was Jack Easterby. Despite McNair being the owner of the Texans, he acted as a puppet to Easterby, and allowed him to make any decision at any time. Even though McNair was in the process of hiring the guy he wanted, he listened to Easterby and suddenly changed course to Caserio, despite him not even being one of McNair's finalists for the job, as many sources have reported. Caserio got hired and Khan went back to Pittsburgh.
Cleveland Browns
Cleveland Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson
After being told that he would have a say in who the GM would be, Deshaun Watson got very angry when Easterby made his own decision on the fly, and the hiring of David Culley over Eric Bienemy prompted Watson to tell the Texans that he will never play a down of football for them again. Even if it ended up working out in the end, the Texans still angered their franchise quarterback into borderline retirement, as he sat out the entire season due to his hatred for the team.
What is the result of Easterby's mistake for the Steelers?
Maya Giron Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Steelers Omar Khan and Mike Tomlin
A slippery slope that started with a simple tampering incident led to the Texans being forced to rebuild the team and start from scratch. Luckily, Easterby was fired in the middle of the 2022 season, so he will not be there to ruin their rebuild. That slippery slope also led to the Steelers promoting Khan to general manager after the 2022 draft, and he already has all the praise in the world, including hiring an elite assistant GM in Andy Weidl.
It also led to the Cleveland Browns trading all of their draft capital for Watson and giving him $230 million guaranteed. After a year off and an 11-game suspension, Watson is clearly not the same quarterback that he was in Houston. For Khan staying in Pittsburgh and the Browns falling out of relevance again, you can send your thanks to Jack Easterby and the Houston Texans.
What do you think of the whole situation with Omar Khan and the Houston Texans? Let us know in the comments below.
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