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The Pittsburgh Steelers are set to hire Mike McCarthy as their next head coach, according to multiple reports on Saturday afternoon.
The hire will break the mold in terms of Steelers head coaches in recent memory. It’s also a mistake.
It’s not a mistake because McCarthy is a bad coach. He’s been an extremely successful coach at the NFL level, with a career .608 winning percentage. He’s worked with a half-dozen of the best quarterbacks in the NFL during his time in the league, including Joe Montana, Rich Gannon, Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers and Dak Prescott.
Even in Dallas, where he ultimately did not find much postseason success, McCarthy won 12 games three straight years from 2021-23. That’s half of Dallas’ 12-win seasons since the Cowboys’ last Super Bowl in 1996.
McCarthy is unlikely to be a disaster of a head coach in Pittsburgh. But it’s also a total failure of a hiring process from Art Rooney II.
Pittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II during the team’s Hall of Honor announcement on July 29, 2024. — Alan Saunders / Steelers Now
The Steelers very clearly did not set out to hire a coach like McCarthy. Of their nine confirmed candidates for the position, six of them were on the defensive side of the ball, seven of them were first-time head coaches, and eight of them were 45 years old or younger.
The Steelers were very clearly trying to hire a younger coach. McCarthy looked like an afterthought, a box to check, maybe someone to use as a check against the youth of the pool.Â
If the Steelers really wanted to hire someone like McCarthy — an offensive coach with experience — they should have had a totally different coaching pool. They should have interviewed Kevin Stefanski, a younger, better coach. They should have interviewed Mike McDaniel and Kliff Kingsbury and John Harbaugh and tried to convince Sean McDermott to take an interview
Not only that — the Steelers are set to hire McCarthy without even having the ability to interview Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula and passing game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase, who are still coaching in the playoffs.
The two Rams coaches got virtual interviews. They both reportedly went well. But the Steelers were apparently so enamored by McCarthy that they couldn’t wait two more days to see what they’d be like an in-person setting?Â
Who else was beating down the door for McCarthy at this point? The only other jobs he interviewed for — the New York Giants and Tennessee Titans — have already been filled.
McCarthy might not turn out to be a bad hire. He’s been a very successful coach. I’d bet on him continuing to be that. But this was a disaster of a process for the Steelers, and it should coincide with grave concern about the future direction of the team if that’s the type of leadership it’s getting.
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