The Steelers have found their next head coach. Mike McCarthy may not be the fans' first choice, and while there's reason to be skeptical, there's also reason to be intrigued. At the very least, he'll understand what the city of Pittsburgh expects of this franchise.
Hiring McCarthy breaks the mold from which the Steelers have hired the previous three head coaches, tenures that spanned the past 57 seasons. Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin were all defensive-minded coaches that were hired in their mid-30s with no previous head coaching experience in the NFL. McCarthy is the polar opposite. He's 62 years old, an offensive-minded coach and has 18 seasons of experience as an NFL head coach.
Looking over McCarthy's career, there's enough evidence to see how this hire could pay off for the Steelers, but also see it not pan out.
WHY MCCARTHY COULD SUCCEED
Perhaps the most refreshing part of this hire is the fact that McCarthy is an offensive coach. This swings the focus to the offensive side of the ball, something this franchise hasn't done since before Neil Armstrong became the first human being to walk on the moon.
McCarthy has a longstanding reputation of working with and developing quarterbacks. He worked with Joe Montana at the tail end of his Hall of Fame career with the Chiefs, then oversaw an era in which Chiefs' quarterbacks threw the lowest number of interceptions in the NFL from 1995-98. He then worked with Brett Favre in 1999 as Packers quarterbacks coach.
No quarterback thrived under McCarthy more than Aaron Rodgers, who played under him for 13 seasons. During that time, Rodgers became one of the game's all-time great quarterbacks, winning two of his four MVP awards and one Super Bowl championship -- against McCarthy's hometown Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.
But McCarthy wasn't done. After his first three seasons as Cowboys head coach in which offensive coordinator Kellen Moore called the plays, McCarthy took over as offensive play caller in 2023. In that season, Dak Prescott turned in perhaps the best season of his career, completing a career-best 69.5% of his passes for 4,516 yards, a league-high 36 touchdowns and only nine interceptions, good enough for a career-best 105.9 passer rating and NFL-best 73.4 ESPN QBR. Prescott was named second-team All-Pro and was runner up in the MVP voting that year.
Developing the next franchise quarterback could be a big reason why McCarthy was hired. The Steelers already have Will Howard under contract for the next three seasons. With a projected 12 picks in the upcoming NFL Draft, perhaps Omar Khan wants to add to that room with another prospect, giving McCarthy another player to perhaps groom into the next great Steelers quarterback.
McCarthy is also known for having a modest coaching tree. Moore, Joe Philbin, Ben McAdoo, Brian Schottenheimer and Dan Quinn have all worked under McCarthy then went on to become head coaches. Granted, those coaches have all had minimal success after moving onto a head coaching position, except for Quinn, who took the surprise Commanders to an NFC Championship Game appearance in the 2024 season. However, if McCarthy were to hire a younger offensive coordinator, perhaps he could groom that coach to become a potential replacement down the line.
The coaching staff that McCarthy puts together could also be a reason he succeeds, if Art Rooney II allows him to do anything close to what he was permitted to do in Dallas. In his final season as the Cowboys' head coach, McCarthy had a staff of 24 coaches under him. In this past Steelers season, Mike Tomlin had just 18.
One noticeable difference McCarthy had was an assistant quarterbacks coach that was also responsible for game management. McCarthy also had two of his offensive position coaches serve as run game coordinator and pass game coordinator. On top of that, McCarthy employed a pass game specialist and another offensive assistant that also served as quality control. Tomlin's offensive staff never had a quality control coach on the offensive side of the ball.
While McCarthy is an old-school coach, he's employed staffs that fit more of a modern look. That, along with the potential of developing the next franchise quarterback and hiring a defensive coordinator that could rejuvenate that side of the ball (perhaps Al Harris, who worked under McCarthy in Dallas), might be enough to make the McCarthy era in Steelers history a success.
WHY MCCARTHY COULD FAIL
McCarthy's won a lot of games in the NFL, 174 of them to be exact. But, he's 11-11 in the postseason. When you coach 13 seasons with Rodgers and win just one Super Bowl, there are going to be critics. If you can't win more than once with one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, how are you going to win with anything less?
McCarthy's most recent postseason win came in the 2022 season when the Cowboys advanced to the NFC divisional playoff. That one playoff win is the only one over the past nine years, the same stretch in which the Steelers have won zero playoff games. In fact, he's only coached in four playoff games during that stretch, going 1-3 in those games, all while having Rodgers and Prescott as his quarterbacks. That means 18 of the 22 postseason games in which he was head coach go back to the 2016 season and earlier. While some will compare this hire to Sean Payton going to the Broncos, even Payton was having more recent success in the playoffs, winning three playoff games from 2017-2020.
McCarthy's time in Green Bay will always come with some measure of success since he helped bring them their most recent Lombardi Trophy. However, there's a reason why his tenure wound up with his firing after Week 13 of the 2018 season. There was reported tension between him and Rodgers, and there was fear that McCarthy's offense was growing stale, all while a slew of other offensive coaches were passing him by, namely Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay.
While there's no guarantee that McCarthy's hiring means Rodgers will come back for another season in Pittsburgh, it certainly leaves the door open. While Rodgers proved he can still do some things at a high level (his arm, leadership and pre-snap smarts stand out more than anything else), the Steelers desperately need to modernize their offensive scheme. Rodgers likes to play his way, which is a bit more old school. The passing game would likely look very similar to what we saw in 2025. At least in the short term, that's not a recipe for success.
It's not impossible for an older coach to find success in today's NFL. Payton is doing it in Denver. Mike Vrabel is doing it in New England. But, both of those teams have a young franchise quarterback and lethal defense. The Steelers have neither.
It will be on McCarthy to identify a new quarterback and develop him, then also hire a new defensive coordinator that can turn the Steelers' defense into a formidable unit again. Since the Packers' Super Bowl win over the Steelers in the 2010 season, in which Green Bay boasted the No. 5 defense in the NFL, McCarthy's defenses have been ranked that high just one time (2023 under Quinn, fifth-ranked defense).
This is a tall task for McCarthy. It'd be one thing if he already had a quarterback to mold. It's hard to identify Howard as that guy since he has yet to take an NFL snap. It'd be something else if he were also inheriting a top-five defense. Based on his track record, McCarthy could potentially give the Steeles their next quarterback. While that would be a great development, it still might not make his run as head coach a success if the defense doesn't get sorted out. After all, look at the remaining teams in the NFL right now. You have to play defense to win. That's never changed.
Based on precedent, McCarthy will only succeed as a Steelers head coach if he delivers a seventh Lombardi into the trophy case on South Water Street. The three coaches before him did. And with everything in his path, McCarthy has quite a bit to overcome to bring this franchise to the top of the mountain.
THE ASYLUM
McCarthy hire has potential, also uncertainty
The Steelers have found their next head coach. Mike McCarthy may not be the fans' first choice, and while there's reason to be skeptical, there's also reason to be intrigued. At the very least, he'll understand what the city of Pittsburgh expects of this franchise.
Hiring McCarthy breaks the mold from which the Steelers have hired the previous three head coaches, tenures that spanned the past 57 seasons. Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin were all defensive-minded coaches that were hired in their mid-30s with no previous head coaching experience in the NFL. McCarthy is the polar opposite. He's 62 years old, an offensive-minded coach and has 18 seasons of experience as an NFL head coach.
Looking over McCarthy's career, there's enough evidence to see how this hire could pay off for the Steelers, but also see it not pan out.
WHY MCCARTHY COULD SUCCEED
Perhaps the most refreshing part of this hire is the fact that McCarthy is an offensive coach. This swings the focus to the offensive side of the ball, something this franchise hasn't done since before Neil Armstrong became the first human being to walk on the moon.
McCarthy has a longstanding reputation of working with and developing quarterbacks. He worked with Joe Montana at the tail end of his Hall of Fame career with the Chiefs, then oversaw an era in which Chiefs' quarterbacks threw the lowest number of interceptions in the NFL from 1995-98. He then worked with Brett Favre in 1999 as Packers quarterbacks coach.
No quarterback thrived under McCarthy more than Aaron Rodgers, who played under him for 13 seasons. During that time, Rodgers became one of the game's all-time great quarterbacks, winning two of his four MVP awards and one Super Bowl championship -- against McCarthy's hometown Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.
But McCarthy wasn't done. After his first three seasons as Cowboys head coach in which offensive coordinator Kellen Moore called the plays, McCarthy took over as offensive play caller in 2023. In that season, Dak Prescott turned in perhaps the best season of his career, completing a career-best 69.5% of his passes for 4,516 yards, a league-high 36 touchdowns and only nine interceptions, good enough for a career-best 105.9 passer rating and NFL-best 73.4 ESPN QBR. Prescott was named second-team All-Pro and was runner up in the MVP voting that year.
Developing the next franchise quarterback could be a big reason why McCarthy was hired. The Steelers already have Will Howard under contract for the next three seasons. With a projected 12 picks in the upcoming NFL Draft, perhaps Omar Khan wants to add to that room with another prospect, giving McCarthy another player to perhaps groom into the next great Steelers quarterback.
McCarthy is also known for having a modest coaching tree. Moore, Joe Philbin, Ben McAdoo, Brian Schottenheimer and Dan Quinn have all worked under McCarthy then went on to become head coaches. Granted, those coaches have all had minimal success after moving onto a head coaching position, except for Quinn, who took the surprise Commanders to an NFC Championship Game appearance in the 2024 season. However, if McCarthy were to hire a younger offensive coordinator, perhaps he could groom that coach to become a potential replacement down the line.
The coaching staff that McCarthy puts together could also be a reason he succeeds, if Art Rooney II allows him to do anything close to what he was permitted to do in Dallas. In his final season as the Cowboys' head coach, McCarthy had a staff of 24 coaches under him. In this past Steelers season, Mike Tomlin had just 18.
One noticeable difference McCarthy had was an assistant quarterbacks coach that was also responsible for game management. McCarthy also had two of his offensive position coaches serve as run game coordinator and pass game coordinator. On top of that, McCarthy employed a pass game specialist and another offensive assistant that also served as quality control. Tomlin's offensive staff never had a quality control coach on the offensive side of the ball.
While McCarthy is an old-school coach, he's employed staffs that fit more of a modern look. That, along with the potential of developing the next franchise quarterback and hiring a defensive coordinator that could rejuvenate that side of the ball (perhaps Al Harris, who worked under McCarthy in Dallas), might be enough to make the McCarthy era in Steelers history a success.
WHY MCCARTHY COULD FAIL
McCarthy's won a lot of games in the NFL, 174 of them to be exact. But, he's 11-11 in the postseason. When you coach 13 seasons with Rodgers and win just one Super Bowl, there are going to be critics. If you can't win more than once with one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, how are you going to win with anything less?
McCarthy's most recent postseason win came in the 2022 season when the Cowboys advanced to the NFC divisional playoff. That one playoff win is the only one over the past nine years, the same stretch in which the Steelers have won zero playoff games. In fact, he's only coached in four playoff games during that stretch, going 1-3 in those games, all while having Rodgers and Prescott as his quarterbacks. That means 18 of the 22 postseason games in which he was head coach go back to the 2016 season and earlier. While some will compare this hire to Sean Payton going to the Broncos, even Payton was having more recent success in the playoffs, winning three playoff games from 2017-2020.
McCarthy's time in Green Bay will always come with some measure of success since he helped bring them their most recent Lombardi Trophy. However, there's a reason why his tenure wound up with his firing after Week 13 of the 2018 season. There was reported tension between him and Rodgers, and there was fear that McCarthy's offense was growing stale, all while a slew of other offensive coaches were passing him by, namely Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay.
While there's no guarantee that McCarthy's hiring means Rodgers will come back for another season in Pittsburgh, it certainly leaves the door open. While Rodgers proved he can still do some things at a high level (his arm, leadership and pre-snap smarts stand out more than anything else), the Steelers desperately need to modernize their offensive scheme. Rodgers likes to play his way, which is a bit more old school. The passing game would likely look very similar to what we saw in 2025. At least in the short term, that's not a recipe for success.
It's not impossible for an older coach to find success in today's NFL. Payton is doing it in Denver. Mike Vrabel is doing it in New England. But, both of those teams have a young franchise quarterback and lethal defense. The Steelers have neither.
It will be on McCarthy to identify a new quarterback and develop him, then also hire a new defensive coordinator that can turn the Steelers' defense into a formidable unit again. Since the Packers' Super Bowl win over the Steelers in the 2010 season, in which Green Bay boasted the No. 5 defense in the NFL, McCarthy's defenses have been ranked that high just one time (2023 under Quinn, fifth-ranked defense).
This is a tall task for McCarthy. It'd be one thing if he already had a quarterback to mold. It's hard to identify Howard as that guy since he has yet to take an NFL snap. It'd be something else if he were also inheriting a top-five defense. Based on his track record, McCarthy could potentially give the Steeles their next quarterback. While that would be a great development, it still might not make his run as head coach a success if the defense doesn't get sorted out. After all, look at the remaining teams in the NFL right now. You have to play defense to win. That's never changed.
Based on precedent, McCarthy will only succeed as a Steelers head coach if he delivers a seventh Lombardi into the trophy case on South Water Street. The three coaches before him did. And with everything in his path, McCarthy has quite a bit to overcome to bring this franchise to the top of the mountain.
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