{"id":95773,"date":"2026-01-24T19:59:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/95773\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T19:59:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T19:59:09","slug":"mike-mccarthy-hire-a-huge-process-failure-for-steelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/95773\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike McCarthy Hire a Huge Process Failure for Steelers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers Commentary<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PittsburghCredit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

The Pittsburgh Steelers are set to hire<\/a> Mike McCarthy <\/a>as their next head coach, according to multiple reports on Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The hire will break the mold in terms of Steelers head coaches in recent memory. It\u2019s also a mistake.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a mistake because McCarthy is a bad coach. He\u2019s been an extremely successful coach at the NFL level, with a career .608 winning percentage. He\u2019s 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<\/a> and Dak Prescott.<\/p>\n

Even in Dallas, where he ultimately did not find much postseason success, McCarthy won 12 games three straight years from 2021-23. That\u2019s half of Dallas\u2019 12-win seasons since the Cowboys\u2019 last Super Bowl in 1996.<\/p>\n

McCarthy is unlikely to be a disaster of a head coach in Pittsburgh. But it\u2019s also a total failure of a hiring process from Art Rooney II<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers president Art Rooney II during the team\u2019s Hall of Honor announcement on July 29, 2024. \u2014 Alan Saunders \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

The Steelers very clearly did not set out to hire a coach like McCarthy. Of their nine confirmed candidates for the position<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the Steelers really wanted to hire someone like McCarthy \u2014 an offensive coach with experience \u2014 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<\/a> and tried to convince Sean McDermott to take an interview<\/p>\n

Not only that \u2014 the Steelers are set to hire McCarthy without even having the ability to interview Los Angeles Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula<\/a> and passing game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase<\/a>, who are still coaching in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

The two Rams coaches got virtual interviews. They both reportedly went well. But the Steelers were apparently so enamored by McCarthy that they couldn\u2019t wait two more days to see what they\u2019d be like an in-person setting?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who else was beating down the door for McCarthy at this point? The only other jobs he interviewed for \u2014 the New York Giants and Tennessee Titans \u2014 have already been filled.<\/p>\n

McCarthy might not turn out to be a bad hire. He\u2019s been a very successful coach. I\u2019d 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\u2019s the type of leadership it\u2019s getting.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> top<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers Commentary Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images The Pittsburgh Steelers are set to hire Mike McCarthy as their next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[73,75,74,1833,1829,17531],"class_list":{"0":"post-95773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-pittsburgh","9":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","10":"tag-pittsburgh-news","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-steelers","13":"tag-top"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95773","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=95773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}