Author: nfltalk

Omar Khan isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The Pittsburgh Steelers’ general manager has agreed to a three-year contract extension that runs through the 2028 season. 

Khan, 48, has been Pittsburgh’s general manager since he succeeded Kevin Colbert in 2022. This year marks Khan’s 25th season with the organization. 

“I am excited to announce we have signed Omar to a new three-year contract,” Steelers president Art Rooney II said in a statement. “Omar and his team have done a great job over the past three years in constructing our roster through the NFL Draft, strategic trades, and free agency. We look forward to continuing that trend that will lead to even more success on the field.”

Khan has made sweeping changes to Pittsburgh’s roster during his time as general manger. Wideout Calvin Austin III, tight end Pat Freiermuth, defensive tackle Cameron Heyward, pass rushers T.J. Watt and Alex Highsmith, kicker Chris Boswell and long snapper Christian Kuntz are the only current starters who were on the roster when Khan took the baton from Colbert (the franchise’s only other general manager since the turn of the century) at the conclusion of the 2022 NFL Draft. 

Breaking down Steelers by position after one of busiest offseasons in NFL history

Douglas Clawson

Nicknamed the “Khan Artist,” Khan’s willingness to take big swings has led to some big transactions since he took over as general manager three years ago, which is a stark contract to how the Steelers previously did business. This offseason alone, he…

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Broncos safety P.J. Locke underwent back surgery shortly after the team’s playoff loss to the Bills, he announced in a 14-minute YouTube video.

The first episode of the personal documentary series, “My Breakthrough,” lays out that there were “no guarantees that P.J. would return to play football ever again” as one of the first NFL players to undergo spinal fusion surgery.

Locke shared a meeting with his surgeon, Dr. Chad Prusmack, on Feb. 10 after surgery. The degenerated discs in Locke’s L4 and L5 vertebrae led to bone-on-bone, and Prusmack fused the spine with a “cage” and screws.

“How I felt the first week after surgery. It’s like: ‘Oh, my God. I don’t know how I’m going to get better after this,’” Locke said in the video, via Kyle Frederickson of the Denver Gazette.

Five months later, though, Locke said he’s “got no pain levels.”

“Even the little bit of pain I do have from certain movements, it’s nothing compared to what I was dealing with during the season,” Locke said. “I feel like it’s been a miracle. I feel like it’s a breakthrough I’ve been praying for. It came out of a blessing that I wasn’t expecting.”

Locke was named the team’s Ed Block Courage Award winner in January. No one outside the locker room realized exactly what he was going through to get on the field for 15 games last season.

He played 1,000 defensive snaps in the regular season and all 76 snaps in the postseason loss.

Locke did not participate in the team’s offseason program as he continued his rehab. He is expected to compete for safety snaps after the Broncos signed Talanoa Hufanga in free agency.

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Travis Kelce is still at least one season out from his retirement, but he already has some ambitions in mind for his post-playing career. The Kansas City Chiefs tight end could become the next NFL star to step into the broadcast booth at the end of his playing days, as he said he has always had an interest in the production side of football and getting behind the microphone.

Some of the most prominent color analysts in the industry are NFL greats. Tom Brady became the latest superstar to jump into the booth when he did so last season, and he was on the call for Super Bowl LIX. Tony Romo, Cris Collinsworth and Troy Aikman are other staples on the microphone, and Greg Olsen preceded a potential Kelce debut as a high-profile tight end to embark on a broadcasting career.

“I wanna see what calling a game feels like,” Kelce said on the “Bussin’ With The Boys” podcast. “Getting in the booth. I’ve always impersonated guys that call the games and stuff like that growing up. I don’t know, I thought it would always be fun to just jump in there. Player names is where I would get [expletive] ruined.”

Agent’s Take: What it will take for Chiefs to retain star guard Trey Smith for the foreseeable future

Joel Corry

Kelce will turn 36 in October and is set for his 13th year in the NFL, all of which have come with the Chiefs. He will all but certainly…

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Throughout the offseason, the Steelers have exhibited the desperation that comes from not winning a playoff game in eight years. For that streak to end, they first need to get to the playoffs.

While the project win totals have them on the borderline of their usual range of 9-8, the game-at-a-time lines paint a more pessimistic picture.

As Andrew Fillipponi of 93.7 The Fan recently noted on Twitter, the Steelers are favored in only six of their 17 games to be played in 2025.

It seemed incorrect, so we checked the lines at DraftKings. And it’s accurate. Pittsburgh is the favorite in six games, and the underdog in 11 games.

The Steelers are the favorites in Week 1 at the Jets (-3), Week 2 vs. the Seahawks (-1.5), Week 6 vs. the Browns (-6.5), Week 9 vs. the Colts (-3.5), Week 15 vs. the Dolphins (-2.5), and Week 17 at the Browns (-2.5).

Obviously, all lines are subject to change as the games approach. One massive change for the Steelers would come from the inability to work out a new contract with linebacker T.J. Watt. If he’s traded (and the team reportedly has “no intention” to do so, which often is the precursor to a trade), it would change everything.

It seems way too late in the game to move on from Watt. The locker room would have a very hard time processing his departure. Their perceived prospects would plummet if the team goes from expecting to have Watt to not having him.

It actually gives Watt more leverage in his ongoing negotiations with the team. To smooth things over, they’ll need to dig deep and make him the highest-paid player at his position, north of Myles Garrett.

Still, even if they manage to extend Watt’s deal, the bettors aren’t believers. At least not on a game-by-game basis.

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The NFL and the NFL Players Association are not expected to engage in formal negotiations to expand to an 18-game regular season until “at least early 2026,” the Washington Post’s Mark Maske reported Tuesday.

Adding an 18th game has been seen as inevitable, as CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones reported from the league’s annual meetings back in April, though it was “not a focus of our discussions by any stretch of the imagination” at the time, commissioner Roger Goodell said.

Last year, NFLPA executive director Lloyd Howell revealed the players association had been involved in informal talks regarding an 18-game schedule, but as Maske reports, those discussions have not led to formal negotiations, and that is unlikely to change before early next year. 

Between now and then, Howell plans to have “team-by-team meetings with players to set the NFLPA’s bargaining priorities,” a source told Maske, and the union could begin formal negotiations in March after player representative meetings.

NFL moving to 18-game schedule seems inevitable: Breaking down logistics, player safety, playoff seeding, more

Jonathan Jones

The league went from a 16-game season to a 17-game season in 2021, one year after the 2020 CBA approved such a change. The players received an increased portion of revenue and other benefits in exchange for the added…

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