Let's Be Honest, Steelers Just Made a Huge Mistake Hiring Mike McCarthy

For decades, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been a model of consistency and continuity. This is a team that has had just three head coaches in the Super Bowl era—Hall of Famer Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin. Over Tomlin's 19 seasons as Pittsburgh's head coach, the Steelers never had a losing record. The team won 10 games and captured the AFC North title in 2025.

However, after getting waxed in the Wild Card Round by the Houston Texans, Tomlin stepped down. To some, that signaled time for seismic change—a franchise reset of sorts after seven straight losses in the playoffs.

The Steelers apparently did not agree—the hiring of Mike McCarthy is less seismic change than it is staying the course. A belief that these Steelers aren't far off from Super Bowl contention.

That belief is misplaced. Hiring McCarthy is a mistake. And the Steelers are about to find out both the hard way.

Per ESPN's Brooke Pryor, the Steelers are hiring the 62-year-old McCarthy, who was out of coaching last year after a five-year stint with the Dallas Cowboys, to be the 17th head coach in franchise history after interviews with three candidates in person and seven more virtually.

To be fair, it's not hard to see why McCarthy might appeal to Pittsburgh. McCarthy has a .608 career winning percentage over 18 seasons with the Cowboys and Green Bay Packers. McCarthy's teams made the playoffs 12 times, and he coached the Packers to a victory over the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV.

As it happens, Aaron Rodgers was the quarterback for that Packers team, so it doesn't take a massive reach to assume that the Steelers are hopeful that McCarthy's hiring could coax Rodgers to return to the Steelers in 2026. Rodgers and McCarthy had something of a bumpy ride together—Bleacher Report's Tyler Dunne wrote in 2018 that Rodgers reportedly said McCarthy had, "one of the lowest (football) IQs, if not the lowest IQ, of any coach he's ever had." But while speaking to The Athletic's Matt Schneidman in 2022, Rodgers had good things to say about his former coach.

AP Photo/David Richard

"I think time always can be a great healer, not that there needed to be a lot of healing in our relationship. There was always so much love," Rodgers said. "That's always gonna connect us and bond us, and with time, it's just increased the greater gratitude that I have for him, the time we spent together, the love I have for him and the appreciation for what he meant to my career."

Getting Rodgers back for another year would fit into Pittsburgh's apparent plans for 2026, which is run it back with the veteran roster that went 10-7 last year. While speaking to reporters at the press conference after Tomlin resigned, team president Art Rooney II dismissed the idea of a rebuild.

"I'm not sure why you waste a year of your life not trying to contend," Rooney said. "The standard is to try to compete to win a championship every year. I'm not going to say, 'Well, we're going to take a couple of years to figure this out and then we'll try to compete.' I think you try every year. Some years you have the horses to really get there. Some years you don't, but you try every year, in my view."

It's the mentality the Steelers have had for years—and it's busted.

To be clear, while the Steelers haven't been bad in recent years, they haven't been especially good, either. The last time the Steelers won a postseason game was an 18-16 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs in the Divisional Round after the 2016 season. The Cleveland Browns have won a postseason game more recently. In blowout fashion. In Pittsburgh.

That lack of playoff success isn't going to reverse itself. Not with the roster the team has now. Even if Rodgers returns, he's a 42-year-old quarterback who was 30th among NFL signal-callers in QBR last year. Outside wide receiver D.K. Metcalf, the passing-game weapons are limited. The team's defensive corps is aging—defensive lineman Cameron Heyward is 36, edge-rusher T.J. Watt is 31 and defensive back Jalen Ramsey is 31. That defense was 29th in the league against the pass in 2025.

Yes, the Steelers won a weak AFC North this year. But they were never a threat to the AFC's elite, as evidenced by their 30-6 loss at home to Houston in the Wild Card Round. The team has significant flaws. And with $37.6 million in cap space and the 21st overall pick in April's draft, an instant overhaul isn't going to be easy.

Even with an improved roster, McCarthy isn't necessarily the guy who is going to take Pittsburgh to the next level and return them to status as a legitimate contender. For all his success in the regular season, McCarthy is just 11-11 in the playoffs. His Packers teams appeared in just one Super Bowl and went 1-3 in the NFC Championship Game. In his most recent stint in Dallas, McCarthy won 12 games in three straight seasons—and didn't get out of the Wild Card Round twice.

The McCarthy-Rodgers Packers were a better team than these Steelers—significantly. They were also one of the more underachieving franchises in the playoffs in recent memory. How is that going to change in Pittsburgh?

AP Photo/Kamil Krzaczynski

News flash—it's not.

Pittsburgh is also going against its own philosophy where head coaches are concerned. Noll, Cowher and Tomlin were all first-time head coaches under 40 years old. McCarthy is a 62-year-old retread with a long history of being OK—but not much more than that.

And that's the problem in Pittsburgh. The Steelers are stuck—and have been for years. The team isn't good enough to contend for the Super Bowl, but not bad enough to get a high pick that could lead to the franchise answering the massive question under center than has loomed since Ben Roethlisberger hung them up.

The Steelers are mired in mediocrity. Have been for some time. This was a chance to shake free of those shackles—even if it meant taking some lumps in the short-term. But rather than suck it up and admit the status quo isn't working, the Steelers have hit the "repeat" button. And come this time next year, the team will be right back where they were in January of 2026. And January of 2025. Stuck in the mud.

Even if Rodgers comes back, Pittsburgh's ceiling with McCarthy as coach next year will be no different than last—win 9-10 games, maybe get into the playoffs and then get smacked in the Wild Card Round. There was a time when that wasn't good enough in the Steel City.

Apparently, that time has passed.