The Pittsburgh Steelers have hired Mike McCarthy as their next head coach, the team announced Saturday.
McCarthy, a Pittsburgh native, will replace Mike Tomlin, who stepped down after a 19-season run leading the Steelers. Tomlin was the longest-tenured head coach in the NFL before he resigned.
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McCarthy, 62, is the Steelers’ fourth head coach since 1969. He follows in the footsteps of Tomlin, Bill Cowher and Chuck Noll, who were 34, 34 and 37 years old, respectively, when they were given the keys. Noll coached Pittsburgh to four Super Bowl wins over 23 seasons. Cowher delivered a Lombardi in 15 seasons, and Tomlin ushered in another early in his nearly two-decade stay.
The McCarthy hire bucks the trend of the Steelers hiring young up-and-comers. After all, this will be his third head-coaching gig. He previously coached the Green Bay Packers for 13 seasons from 2006-18 and the Dallas Cowboys for five seasons from 2020-24. He led the Packers to a Super Bowl win during the 2010 season, coincidentally over Tomlin’s Steelers in that game.
McCarthy’s quarterback at the time? Aaron Rodgers, whose NFL career took off under McCarthy’s watch, as he won the first two of his four league MVP awards with McCarthy at the helm. The Steelers hiring McCarthy wasn’t about convincing Rodgers to play another season in Pittsburgh, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, but the head coach’s presence could entice the 42-year-old signal-caller to run it back once more.
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In McCarthy’s 18 seasons as a head coach, he’s responsible for 12 playoff trips and a 174-112-2 record. McCarthy guided the Cowboys to a pair of NFC East titles and, before that, the Packers to six NFC North crowns.
He and Steelers general manager Omar Khan crossed paths in 2000, when Khan was working in football operations for the New Orleans Saints and McCarthy was the team’s offensive coordinator.
McCarthy’s Pittsburgh ties run deeper. His father was a Pittsburgh firefighter and owned a bar that McCarthy cleaned weekly before church services, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Additionally, near the beginning of McCarthy’s coaching career, he served as a graduate assistant at Pitt from 1989-91 and, per Schefter, doubled as an overnight shift toll collector on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
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Under the ownership of the Rooney family, the Steelers have become known for their organizational stability, in part because of their expertise in picking coaches to pilot the franchise.
Pittsburgh’s six Super Bowl titles are tied for the most in NFL history. The New England Patriots matched that total during the second leg of their 21st-century dynasty.
The Steelers haven’t won it all since the 2008 season. They last made it to the Super Bowl during the 2010 campaign, and they haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season.
While Tomlin never had a losing season, he lost his last seven playoff games as head coach. Team owner Art Rooney II would have welcomed Tomlin back in 2026, but now that he’s gone, the franchise has hit the reset button. That said, Rooney doesn’t like the word “rebuild.”
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He told reporters that the Steelers will try to compete from Day 1.
McCarthy will be tasked with returning postseason success to the Steel City while maintaining the hard-nosed culture and proud tradition his predecessors stewarded.
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