PITTSBURGH, Pa. (AP) — Mike McCarthy is coming home.
The Pittsburgh Steelers intend to hire McCarthy, who is from Pittsburgh, to replace Mike Tomlin as head coach, a person familiar with the deal told the The Associated Press on Saturday.
The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because a deal had not been finalized.
The potential agreement was first reported by ESPN.
McCarthy grew up in the Greenfield neighborhood, just a couple of miles away from the team’s practice facility on the city’s South Side.
The 62-year-old McCarthy is 185–123–2 (playoffs included) across 18 seasons, 13 with Green Bay — which beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl following the 2010 season — and five with Dallas.
His potential hire is just the fourth by the Steelers since 1969 and a marked departure from his predecessors, Tomlin and Hall of Famers Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher.
All three were largely unknown assistants/coordinators. McCarthy is hardly that.
McCarthy would replace Tomlin, who stepped down earlier this month after his 19th season ended with a seventh straight playoff loss, this one at home to the Houston Texans. Tomlin’s surprise departure came as he was under contract for 2026 with a club option for 2027.
The Steelers took a methodical approach, interviewing nearly a dozen candidates that spanned a wide spectrum of experience, from Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (who spent 2022 as a defensive assistant on Tomlin’s staff) to Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who was hired by the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday to replace John Harbaugh.
They ultimately landed on McCarthy, who takes over a team that has been stuck in a purgatory of sorts for going on a decade.
Of all the numbers around Tomlin’s nearly two-decade tenure, one that included 193 regular-season victories — tied with Noll for the most in franchise history — and the team’s sixth Super Bowl, perhaps the most remarkable is zero: the number of losing seasons the Steelers had with Tomlin on the sideline.
That startling consistency, however, did not always translate to postseason success. Pittsburgh has been one-and-done in each of its last six playoff appearances, all of them double-digit losses.
In some ways, the Steelers have been victims of their own success. They have frequently been drafting in the high teens and low-20s, not exactly a prime position to find a franchise quarterback. It didn’t help that they chose not to draft Ben Roethlisberger’s replacement in his final seasons, then whiffed badly on Kenny Pickett, who flamed out in less than two years after being taken in the first round of the 2022 draft.
It’s led to a revolving door at the most important position on the field. If Aaron Rodgers, who will be a free agent in March, doesn’t return for a 22nd season, the Steelers will have their sixth different Week 1 quarterback in six years. McCarthy’s arrival, however, would seemingly open the door for the 42-year-old Rodgers to come back.
Rodgers said earlier this month he believes he would have at least a couple of options if he chose to run it back one more time, and his long partnership with McCarthy in Green Bay included a Super Bowl victory over Tomlin and the Steelers. Pittsburgh will have the 21st pick when a draft that appears to be thin in quality options at quarterback descends on the Steel City in late April.
There’s a very real chance the Steelers, who currently only have veteran backup Mason Rudolph and 2025 sixth-round pick Will Howard under contract for next season, will kick the can down the road again and address a handful of other positions of need in the draft, namely wide receiver and cornerback. Regardless, president Art Rooney II brushed off the idea of the Steelers rebuilding.
“I don’t like that word that much,” Rooney said. “We’ll try to compete day one if we can.”
McCarthy’s potential arrival would indicate that’s still the plan.
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