{"id":101985,"date":"2026-02-01T02:20:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T02:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/101985\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T02:20:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T02:20:12","slug":"cbs-sports-gives-steelers-high-marks-for-patrick-graham-hire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/101985\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS Sports Gives Steelers High Marks For Patrick Graham Hire"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pittsburgh Steelers officially announced that Patrick Graham will be the defensive coordinator<\/a> on Mike McCarthy\u2019s staff. It\u2019s no surprise that the Steelers chose an experienced coordinator to oversee the defense given that McCarthy will be offensively focused.<\/p>\n

CBS Sports gave the hiring of Graham a B+ grade and noted the improvement that the Raiders\u2019 defense showed during Graham\u2019s tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring his second year with the Raiders in 2023, Graham helped the unit go from 26th to ninth in the NFL in points allowed,\u201d CBS Sports writes of the Graham hiring.<\/a> \u201cThis past season, Las Vegas ranked 10th in the league in passing touchdowns allowed and fourth in average yards per carry allowed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Raiders were never a playoff team during Graham\u2019s four seasons and the defense lacked star power outside of Maxx Crosby. In Pittsburgh, a lack of talent won\u2019t be an issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Pittsburgh, Graham will preside over a defense that has a good mix of older, proven veterans (Cam Heyward, T.J. Watt, Jalen Ramsey, Alex Highsmith and Patrick Queen) and young players who are still on the rise (Derrick Harmon, Nick Herbig and Joey Porter Jr.),\u201d CBS Sports added. \u201cIt\u2019s safe to say \u2014 from a personnel standpoint \u2014 the 2026 Steelers defense will be Graham\u2019s best unit since he became a defensive coordinator.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham\u2019s greatest asset is his experience. He\u2019s likely seen it all during his coaching career. He survived three head coaches alone in his four seasons as defensive coordinator with Las Vegas. A more stable environment combined with more talent on the defense should give Graham everything he needs on paper to be successful in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Graham will take over for Teryl Austin who had served as Pittsburgh\u2019s defensive coordinator since 2022 but was on staff since 2019.<\/p>\n

Despite the star power, the Steelers defense faced criticism in 2025 for communication issues and an alarming number of splash plays allowed at times. If Graham is able to clean up the basics, it could go a long way toward improving the defense\u2019s potency in 2026.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if any major personnel changes will affect the Steelers\u2019 defense heading into next season. With veteran players at many key positions, it\u2019s possible that a new coaching staff will want to reshape the roster and shake up the highly paid defense that still finished 26th in yards allowed in 2025.<\/p>\n

The Patrick Graham hire will be most interesting because it will pair a defensive coordinator who has been able to get the most out of teams devoid of talent with a defense that is plenty talented but has not been able to play to their full potential. Graham\u2019s impact on the defense will be one of the storylines to watch in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers officially announced that Patrick Graham will be the defensive coordinator on Mike McCarthy\u2019s staff. It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":101986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[42063,47878,73,75,74,1833,995],"class_list":["post-101985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-cbs-sports","tag-patrick-graham","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}