Now that Mike McCarthy is the Pittsburgh Steelers’ head coach, he’ll need to hire his new coaching staff. Thankfully, with his 20+ years of experience in the league, that shouldn’t be an issue for the 62-year-old coach. He has plenty of connections.
Still, he hasn’t coached since 2024, and the coaching carousel had been in full swing before McCarthy even surfaced as a possible candidate for the Steelers. With options dwindling by the day, Steelers fans are eager to see who will be on staff.
Obviously, McCarthy will be all over the offense, so the biggest question on Steelers fans' minds (apart from quarterbacks and one big question for Art Rooney II) is who will command the defense?
Steelers linked to Raiders DC Patrick Graham as new HC Mike McCarthy builds defensive staff
The answer might not be as savory as Steelers fans might have hoped. According to New York Giants beat reporter Art Stapleton, ex-Giants and Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham might be the leading candidate to join McCarthy’s staff to run the Steelers’ defense.
Graham, 46, is a highly respected coach around the NFL, known for doing more with less, especially within his recent stints with the Giants and Raiders. He took several interviews for head coaching positions around the league in recent weeks, too. Still, Steelers fans who look into his resume won’t come away particularly impressed.
None of Graham’s defenses over the past seven years has contributed to a winning season. The defense in New York surged in the rankings after he left in 2021. The same can be said about the Miami Dolphins, though to a lesser extent, after his one-year stint in South Beach. The Raiders finished with the 14th-ranked defense in yards allowed in 2021, and failed to match it each season until 2025.
Las Vegas did rank 9th in points allowed defensively in 2023, but every other year with Graham as defensive coordinator, they’ve finished 25th or 26th.
Graham’s respect comes from his intangibles in the locker room and his long history within the league. He was a member of Bill Belichick’s coaching staff from 2009 to 2015. In 2018, he was on McCarthy’s staff in Green Bay, primarily coaching the linebackers, but also helping in coordinating the defense’s efforts in stopping the run. Green Bay didn’t have great talent at linebacker that season, and finished 22nd in yards allowed on the ground en route to a 6-9-1 record.
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Of course, if Graham were in charge of the Steelers’ defense in 2026, it’d be by far the most talented unit he’s worked with since he was with the Giants the first time around in 2016. To be known to do more with less is fine, but it comes with the expectation to do even more under better circumstances.
That sounds too familiar to Steelers fans, who just got out of a similar situation with Mike Tomlin as the head coach who could pull the weakest of Steelers rosters to a winning record, but couldn’t ensure the highest-paid defense played anywhere near the standard such a notion would suggest.
Nonetheless, Graham remains an option for McCarthy as he begins to build his staff. Steelers fans will have to wait to see how it shakes out in the coming weeks.