Pittsburgh Steelers owner and president Art Rooney II discussed the team’s decision to hire Mike McCarthy as Mike Tomlin’s replacement at head coach.
“He is someone who has a longer track record than many of the other candidates, a winning track record,” he told Bob Labriola of the team’s website. “He’s been a winner everywhere he’s been. Probably just as important for our purposes, the quarterbacks that he’s worked with have all been very successful. So he has a proven track record of developing top flight quarterbacks. Those are the things that maybe stick out the most.”
The move has been seen among many Steelers fans, however, as a lateral move at best. While Tomlin hadn’t led the Steelers to a playoff win since 2016, a Super Bowl berth since 2010 or a title since 2008, McCarthy’s teams have won all of one playoff game since 2017 and haven’t reached the Super Bowl or won a title since 2010.
Tomlin was 193-114-2 in his 19 years with the Steelers and 8-12 in the playoffs; McCarthy is 174-112-2 in his 18 seasons as a head coach and 11-11 in the playoffs.
McCarthy is an offensive-minded head coach, which should help on that side of the ball. And his career résumé, overall, is solid. Certainly he’s had more success in the postseason, even if he and Tomlin only won one title apiece.
His hiring also makes it seem likely that Aaron Rodgers will return for another season, allowing the Steelers to kick the can down the road on addressing the long-term need for a franchise quarterback. Rooney said that Rodgers’ future remains up in the air, however, and didn’t factor into McCarthy’s hiring.
“We decided to bring Mike on because we believe that he’s the right coach for us at this point to help lead us to a championship,” he said. “We don’t know what Aaron’s plans are right now, and that did not weigh heavily in the decision. We’ll see where Aaron is, and we’ve left the door open, but obviously we all have to sit down and see if that makes sense. So that’ll happen sometime in the next month or so. But the decision was made based on Mike being the coach we want, and it really had very little to do with whether Aaron is going to be back or not.”
So that’s the next subplot to watch for these Steelers. Either way, the next coach is secured, and now it remains to be seen if he’ll offer much more than Tomlin did during his two decades.
