{"id":285457,"date":"2026-09-14T02:32:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T02:32:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/285457\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T02:32:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T02:32:26","slug":"steelers-give-mike-mccarthy-game-ball-after-emotional-win-in-pittsburgh-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/285457\/","title":{"rendered":"Steelers give Mike McCarthy game ball after emotional win in Pittsburgh debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">This article originally appeared on <a href=\"https:\/\/steelersnow.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/steelersnow.com\/\">SteelersNOW.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy received the game ball after Sunday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/steelersnow.com\/t-j-watt-seals-steelers-victory-in-sloppy-opener-over-falcons-20-13\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">season-opening win<\/a> over the Atlanta Falcons. Aaron Rodgers led the initiative on giving his longtime head coach the game ball.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">The Greenfield native grew up watching the Super Steelers of the 1970s. To say the least, it was an emotional day for McCarthy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">\u201cFirst team ball, first win, so obviously a special moment. Really appreciate the guys, really appreciate Aaron and the kind words. It\u2019s time to move on and get team victories from here,\u201d McCarthy said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/steelersnow.com\/steelers-give-mike-mccarthy-game-ball-after-emotional-win-in-pittsburgh-debut\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/steelersnow.com\/steelers-give-mike-mccarthy-game-ball-after-emotional-win-in-pittsburgh-debut\/\">Click here to read more on SteelersNOW.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article originally appeared on SteelersNOW.com. Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy received the game ball after Sunday\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74],"class_list":["post-285457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285457","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=285457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}