The Pittsburgh Steelers plan to hire former Pitt offensive coordinator and longtime NFL assistant Frank Cignetti Jr. to Mike McCarthy’s coaching staff, likely in a senior advisor role. He is the brother of Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, who just won a National Championship.
Cignetti was born in Pittsburgh to Frank Cignetti Sr., a longtime college football coach at IUP and West Virginia. His sons have followed in his footsteps, with Frank coaching with McCarthy as the quarterbacks coach in New Orleans in 2000 and the quarterbacks coach with the Packers in 2018.
Over the years, Cignetti has bounced between the NFL and college football. He was the offensive coordinator at IUP last year, and previously was the offensive coordinator at Pitt for two seasons.
When he has been up at the NFL level, Cignetti has been the quarterbacks coach across multiple teams, but the Steelers already retained Tom Arth to continue that role.
As such, Cignetti would slot in at a higher, advisory role. It is possible the Steelers would give him the ‘Senior offensive assistant’ title, which they have used in the past for accomplished quarterbacks coach Mike Sullivan.
Either way, McCarthy continues to build out a robust staff, and one that is going to be bigger than most of Mike Tomlin’s staffs.