93.7 The Fan\u2019s Pomp and Joe Show<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve heard stories where he told some players stuff that maybe they didn\u2019t want to hear. So he\u2019s still a tough coach that\u2019s not gonna let people walk over him.\u201d<\/p>\nGood leaders walk a fine line between likability and brutal honesty. If you want to see McCarthy do that, fire up HBO and watch his season of Hard Knocks with the Dallas Cowboys. He comes off as a players\u2019 coach, as Mike Tomlin was often labeled, but he showed multiple sides to his personality. Not many coaches are willing to spar with the star quarterback, but McCarthy wasn\u2019t shy about trading barbs with an injured Dak Prescott, who missed practice.<\/p>\n
His unwillingness to settle for mediocrity should resonate with Steelers fans who haven\u2019t won a playoff game in a decade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about winning a world championship. Period. Because that\u2019s all that matters. Going to the playoffs ain\u2019t good enough. Having a winning season, not good enough. Getting to the championship game, not good enough,\u201d he said on Hard Knocks.<\/p>\n
That rhetoric won\u2019t land with fans until the results follow, but it speaks to those who fear McCarthy\u2019s hire will bring in more of the same. At the very least, fans have clear expectations.<\/p>\n
People look at his r\u00e9sum\u00e9 with the Cowboys and write it off as a failed tenure, but he delivered Dallas its most competitive seasons in decades. A 49-35 record, including three straight 12-win seasons, is nothing to sneeze at. Both losing seasons came with Dak Prescott missing significant time due to injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he does get somewhat of a bad rap,\u201d Kaboly said. \u201cHe is John Harbaugh. Those guys have the same exact r\u00e9sum\u00e9. Harbaugh\u2019s considered a Hall of Fame coach, and McCarthy, it seems like people view him as a failure. I don\u2019t think that\u2019s quite fair.\u201d<\/p>\n
Any Super Bowl-winning coach on the top-15 all-time wins list should be considered a smashing success. Winning is hard in the NFL, and keeping up with the evolving league for two decades is even harder. Mike Tomlin\u2019s operation may have grown stale after 20 years with the team, but this is now McCarthy\u2019s third franchise with plenty of learnings and evolutions along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis whole inside of that building has a new feel to it. I wasn\u2019t a big fan of saying Mike Tomlin [is] stale, but now I know what that means,\u201d Kaboly said. \u201cIt does feel a little bit refreshing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the most exciting hire for those of us hoping for a young, innovative mind. But exciting doesn\u2019t always equate to good. McCarthy spoke of a \u201cclean slate\u201d<\/a> for struggling young players like Kaleb Johnson and Roman Wilson.<\/p>\nA fresh start is exactly what the franchise needed. That\u2019s already happening inside the building, even before the offseason training program begins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe it\u2019s the Pittsburgh roots or his laid-back public persona, but Mike McCarthy has long carried a reputation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561486,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[3792,140989,3966,349,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-561485","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-mark-kaboly","9":"tag-mike-mccarthy","10":"tag-mike-tomlin","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561485","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=561485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561485\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}