We knew that the Pittsburgh Steelers wanted Aaron Rodgers to be their starting quarterback for the 2026 season—team president Art Rooney II and general manager Omar Khan made no effort to hide this.
But months before Rodgers officially joined the team on a one-year, $22 million deal (worth up to $25 million), the Steelers signed Mike McCarthy as their head coach.
At the time, this was met with mixed reviews by the fanbase. Steelers fans could get behind McCarthy's track record as a former Super Bowl winner, the success he's helped bring to quarterbacks over the years, and his local roots as a Pittsburgh native. On the other hand, fans were hoping for a young head coach in the post-Mike Tomlin era who would bring energy and innovation to the team.
While McCarthy could prove to be a quality signing, the Steelers may have had a sinister agenda that finally came to fruition.
The Pittsburgh Steelers may have used Mike McCarthy to lure in Aaron Rodgers
We hate to believe that Rooney and Khan—the two decision-makers in charge of choosing the head coach—opted for McCarthy because of his Aaron Rodgers connection.
But this team is naive enough to believe it is a Super Bowl contender in 2026. As badly as they wanted Rodgers (at the expense of developing young draft picks), it's not a stretch to believe this played a role in the decision to hire McCarthy.
Rodgers and McCarthy go way back. As Rodgers sat behind Hall of Famer Brett Favre in Green Bay in 2006 and 2007, McCarthy aided Rodgers' development behind the scenes. The two would go on to overlap 13 seasons with the Packers, winning 107 games—the ninth-most ever by a coach-QB duo in the Super Bowl era, per Adam Schefter.
Khan and Rooney had no interest in having a 'losing' season this year. They aren't into organically 'tanking' for high draft capital or trying to 'rebuild'. Because of this, they believed Rodgers was their best option all along... and McCarthy was the man who could get him here.
Had the Steelers gone in a completely different direction at head coach (say a young, defensive-minded play-caller), this would have included a whole new staff. And that might have been enough to deter Rodgers from coming back for one more season.
Instead, not only did the Steelers make McCarthy their new head coach in 2026, but McCarthy would go on to hire a handful of coaches with ties to Rodgers, like assistant head coach Joe Whitt Jr., offensive line coach James Campen, and senior offensive assistant Frank Cignetti Jr. McCarthy also brought back Tom Arth, who was Rodgers' quarterback coach last season in Pittsburgh.
Coincidence? Perhaps not.
We give the GM and the owner too much credit for believing they look at the long-term scope of the franchise and do what's best for the team's future. When in reality, they've made it abundantly clear that their focus is on the here and now.
Rooney and Khan won't come out and say it, but their decision to hire Mike McCarthy as their head coach may have been influenced by their desperation to get Aaron Rodgers back under contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2026.
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