{"id":430806,"date":"2026-01-26T12:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/430806\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T12:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T12:58:11","slug":"art-rooney-ii-on-mike-mccarthy-hire-the-message-to-our-fans-is-were-very-excited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/430806\/","title":{"rendered":"Art Rooney II on Mike McCarthy hire: &#8220;The message to our fans is we&#8217;re very excited&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many Steelers fans <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nfl\/profootballtalk\/rumor-mill\/news\/mike-mccarthy-hire-falls-flat-with-many-steelers-fans\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">aren\u2019t happy<\/a> with the team\u2019s decision to hire Mike McCarthy to be the successor to Mike Tomlin. Steelers owner Art Rooney II doesn\u2019t care.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re really <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.steelers.com\/news\/labriola-on-why-it-was-mike-mccarthy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">not worried about winning the initial press conference<\/a>,\u201d Rooney said in extensive quotes posted on the team\u2019s official website. \u201cIt\u2019s about picking the coach we believe will help us win games, and social media really doesn\u2019t enter into it. And none of that will matter once we\u2019re starting to play games.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So what is the message to the team\u2019s fans?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe message for our fans is we\u2019re very excited,\u201d Rooney said. \u201cWe think we have a coach who is well-equipped to lead us into the next winning phase of Steelers football, and that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. I think they\u2019re going to love Coach Mike.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The article in which Rooney\u2019s quotes appears acknowledges the consternation that has emerged as a result of the team\u2019s break from its 57-year formula of hiring a first-time head coach with a defensive pedigree: \u201cThe chatter throughout Steelers Nation in the immediate aftermath of this hire has been largely negative,\u201d writes Bob Labriola of Steelers.com.<\/p>\n<p>And, yes, winning will change that. Losing, however, will prompt a strong and loud reaction. Even stronger and louder than the response to the news that the Steelers decided to hire the former Packers and Cowboys head coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Many Steelers fans aren\u2019t happy with the team\u2019s decision to hire Mike McCarthy to be the successor to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-430806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}