The Pittsburgh Steelers are set to rent Mike McCarthy as their new head coach after reaching a verbal settlement.
McCarthy will change Mike Tomlin, who stepped down after 19 seasons with the Steelers following yet one more fast playoff exit.
Pittsburgh-native McCarthy, 62, has spent 18 seasons as an NFL head coach, 13 with the Inexperienced Bay Packers from 2006 to 2018 and 5 with the Dallas Cowboys from 2020 to 2024.
McCarthy has 12 playoff seasons in his profession, an 11-11 postseason document and eight division titles.
Throughout his time with the Dallas Cowboys, he had three 12-win seasons and led them to the playoffs 3 times in 5 seasons.
McCarthy has the second-most wins in Packers’ historical past and led them to a Tremendous Bowl championship in 2010, the place he and Aaron Rodgers defeated the Steelers.
Rodgers, 42, spent final season with the Steelers, however it’s unclear whether or not he’ll return or retire. The hiring of McCarthy will result in hypothesis that Rodgers will return for one more season.
His hiring will probably be simply the fourth by the Steelers since 1969 and a marked departure from his predecessors, Tomlin and Corridor of Famers Chuck Noll and Invoice Cowher.
All three had been largely unknown assistants/coordinators. McCarthy is hardly that.
The Steelers took a methodical strategy to discovering their new head coach, interviewing practically a dozen candidates that spanned a large spectrum of expertise, from Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (who spent 2022 as a defensive assistant on Tomlin’s workers) to Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who was employed by the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday to interchange John Harbaugh.
They in the end landed on McCarthy, who takes over a crew that has been caught in a purgatory of kinds for happening a decade.
Of all of the numbers round Tomlin’s practically two-decade tenure, one which included 193 regular-season victories – tied with Noll for essentially the most in franchise historical past – and the crew’s sixth Tremendous Bowl, maybe essentially the most outstanding is zero: the variety of shedding seasons the Steelers had with Tomlin on the sideline.
That startling consistency, nonetheless, didn’t all the time translate to postseason success. Pittsburgh has been one-and-done in every of its final six playoff appearances, all of them double-digit losses.
In some methods, the Steelers have been victims of their very own success. They’ve steadily been drafting within the excessive teenagers and low-20s, not precisely a main place to discover a franchise quarterback. It did not assist that they selected to not draft Ben Roethlisberger’s alternative in his last seasons, then whiffed badly on Kenny Pickett, who flamed out in lower than two years after being taken within the first spherical of the 2022 draft.
It is led to a revolving door at a very powerful place on the sector. If Aaron Rodgers, who will probably be a free agent in March, does not return for a twenty second season, the Steelers can have their sixth totally different Week One quarterback in six years.
McCarthy’s arrival, nonetheless, would seemingly open the door for the 42-year-old Rodgers to come back again.
Rodgers stated earlier this month he believes he would have no less than a few choices if he selected to run it again yet one more time.
Pittsburgh can have the twenty first choose when a draft that seems to be skinny in high quality choices at quarterback descends on the Metal Metropolis in late April.
Watch the Denver Broncos face the New England Patriots within the AFC Championship Sport and the Los Angeles Rams towards the Seattle Seahawks within the NFC Championship Sport, reside on Sky Sports activities NFL from 7.30pm on Sunday January 25.
