News broke on Saturday that the Pittsburgh Steelers had decided on who their next head coach would be. After a few weeks of speculation, the team announced that former Packers and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy would be taking the helm.
Steelers nation immediately went into an uproar and for all the wrong reasons.
After bringing in numerous young, innovative, and defensive-minded coaches, the team settled on an elderly, out of date offensive minded option instead. It feels like such a letdown considering how this team has played for the past ten years.
Making this move, it is clear what the Steelers' priorities are. This isn’t a team trying to get better for the long term. They care about remaining competitive in the moment at the cost of the future. McCarthy should help them with that.
The Pittsburgh Steelers didn’t make the right choice at head coach with Mike McCarthy
I’ve said it since the start of the offseason: this head coaching class was relatively weak. Names like Jesse Minter and Chris Shula were the best of those options, but there were legitimate questions as to whether they were ready to be head coaches.
That said, the Steelers still had to find somebody, and they just so happened to find the weakest candidate in McCarthy.
McCarthy has proven to be a very Tomlin-like coach. He found early success with the Packers before going on a long stretch of seasons where he failed to find postseason success. His teams were always competitive but faltered in the postseason.
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This hire screams safe. The Steelers don’t want to risk a rebuild. They want to stay in the same place that they have been for years. Winning in the regular season feels like the new goal for this team.
Losing is a natural part of this game, however, and we have seen numerous well-coached teams have quick turnarounds from bad rosters. It takes dedication, though, and a willingness to sacrifice a year or two to get to that point.
Instead, it feels like the Steelers are going to run everything back and hope that they get different results. It feels pathetic.
My tone will change slightly if Aaron Rodgers doesn’t return for a second season and this team turns to Will Howard. That would at least show that this team wants to make some changes. It doesn’t feel like the likely outcome, though.
The other thought I have is that maybe the Steelers agreed that this coaching cycle wasn’t right. McCarthy can man the helm for a few years while keeping this team competitive and, hopefully, finding and developing the next quarterback. Once a better class of coaches is up, Pittsburgh can pounce.
It still feels like a letdown hiring, though. The goal doesn’t feel like the Super Bowl anymore for this team. Instead, the standard is winning seasons and making the playoffs without much more than that. McCarthy fits right into that, which helps make sense of this signing.