Art Rooney: Offensive coordinator choice was Tomlin's
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Steelers president Art Rooney II said the Haley family ties with team had nothing to do with the hiring of Todd Haley as the team's offensive coordinator. -
The hiring of former Chiefs coach Todd Haley as offensive coordinator came as a surprise to Steelers president Art Rooney II, who said the move was the choice of coach Mike Tomlin.
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Not only did Art Rooney II say he had nothing to do with the hiring of Todd Haley, but the Steelers president also was a bit surprised that coach Mike Tomlin wound up hiring him as his new offensive coordinator.
"I think the bottom line is, Mike was comfortable that's who he wanted to come in," Rooney said Thursday afternoon. "It may be fair to say that when he started the discussions and Todd's name was on his original list, I don't think he expected that Todd was the guy he was going to wind up hiring. But as he had more conversations with him, he became more comfortable that he was the right guy for the job."
Rooney agreed to an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to counter rampant speculation that he, not Tomlin, hired Haley to replace Bruce Arians, whose contract was not renewed by the team.
Rooney talked about the process and said that Haley and former Indianapolis head coach Jim Caldwell were the only candidates Tomlin invited to Pittsburgh for interviews. He said he and general manager Kevin Colbert were kept informed by the coach.
"Mike identified a number of candidates that he wanted to talk to and did all of the initial discussions," Rooney said. "We talked about who he was talking to. Kevin and I talked to him, and he sort of kept us in the loop as to who he was thinking about.
"Then he decided who he wanted to bring in for a follow-up interview into Pittsburgh. I did talk to the guys who came into Pittsburgh. I'm not even sure I'd call it an interview, but I had a conversation with them.
"I wouldn't want my role in it to be overestimated because Mike has to decide who he wants on the staff. Even though there's always a discussion between me and Mike about who he's hiring and how much we're paying him and those kinds of things, it's normally a discussion of the business side of the arrangement than, 'Are we going to hire a guy who's going to run the ball so many times a game.' It was a fairly normal process as far as I'm concerned in terms of how we've done those kinds of hirings in the past."
First Published February 17, 2012 12:00 am
