'It just seemed like it was meant
to be.' Mike McCarthy comes home to coach the Pittsburgh Steelers
[January 28, 2026]
By WILL GRAVES
PITTSBURGH (AP) — The tears started early for Mike McCarthy. Really
early.
Considering the setting, it was hard to blame him.
There the kid who grew up rooting for the Pittsburgh Steelers from
his family's home in the city's Greenfield neighborhood was on
Tuesday, sitting on dais wearing a black suit with a gold tie, a
Steelers pin affixed to his lapel.
The job McCarthy always wanted, but never let himself imagine he
would get, his at last.
“I thought I’d at least be able to get started,” the new Steelers
head coach said, trying unsuccessfully to choke back his emotions
while looking at a wide swath of the McCarthy family spread across
the first few rows of a posh club inside Acrisure Stadium.
Nope.
McCarthy collected himself then gamely soldiered on. Yes, the
feel-good vibes of his homecoming are undeniable to a man who admits
“Pittsburgh is my world.”
Yet the 62-year-old is only too aware of why the Steelers hired him
to replace Mike Tomlin, who stepped down earlier this month after 19
seasons.
The ‘obvious’ choice
The trophy case inside the team's facility just a couple of miles
away from where McCarthy grew up at 1137 Greenfield Avenue has
remained frozen in time for nearly two decades and counting.
McCarthy's handiwork is part of that drought after he led the Green
Bay Packers over the Steelers in the Super Bowl 15 years ago.
Neither McCarthy nor his hometown team have been back since. The
clock is ticking.
“It’s time to bring another championship back to this great city,”
McCarthy said.
One that grew increasingly antsy during the final years of Tomlin's
tenure as solid if unremarkable regular seasons were followed by
largely noncompetitive playoff losses, the last a 30-6 blowout at
home to Houston two weeks ago that set the stage for Tomlin's abrupt
exit.
The Steelers, conducting a head coaching search for just the third
time since hiring Chuck Noll in 1969, interviewed a wide swath of
candidates, many of them the kind young assistants in the vein of
Noll, Tomlin and Bill Cowher, all of whom arrived in Pittsburgh as
relative unknowns and left with Super Bowl rings and Hall of
Fame-worthy resumes.
Ultimately Pittsburgh turned to the one candidate who understands
better than most how the team is hard-wired into the city's DNA, one
who also happens to have a Super Bowl ring of his own and a long
track record of churning out teams capable of competing for a title.
“It wasn’t an easy decision, but it was an obvious decision for us,”
said Steelers president Art Rooney II, who noted McCarthy's hiring
became official on the 125th birthday of franchise patriarch Art
Rooney Sr.
Rooney II admitted his grandfather would have loved bringing
McCarthy home, though he stressed McCarthy's deep roots “had little
to do” with making him just the club's fourth head coach in 57
years.
“We had an open mind about it I think and really just said, ‘We
found the best coach,’” Rooney II added.
Not ready to walk away
A coach who thinks he still has plenty left.
McCarthy went 185-113-2 (.608) across 18 seasons (playoffs included)
with Green Bay and Dallas. His tenure in Dallas ended after an
injury-marred 7-10 finish in 2024 led to a parting of ways. He took
2025 off to reconnect with his family, though the urge to coach
never left.
The circadian rhythms of an NFL season are difficult to shake. He
could feel time start to speed up when teams reported for training
camp last summer, and even as he leaned into his somewhat unexpected
break, he knew he wasn't finished.
[to top of second column] |
Mike McCarthy meets with reporters after being introduced as the new
head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh Tuesday, Jan.
27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
“I’m not ready to walk away from this,” McCarthy
said. “To have this opportunity, it just seemed like it was meant to
be on so many different levels.”
He called the 72 hours after reaching a verbal agreement with the
Steelers “a whirlwind” that tugged at both the heartstrings and the
daunting task ahead as he tries to assemble a coaching staff.
McCarthy figures he's received twice as many texts of support as he
did when he led the Packers to a title, though he knows the
honeymoon will be short if he can't find a way to return the
Steelers to legitimate contention in the AFC.
While Pittsburgh's current run of 22 seasons of finishing .500 or
better are an NFL record, the club also hasn't won a playoff game
since beating Kansas City in the divisional round in the 2016
season, tied with Atlanta for the sixth-longest active streak in the
league.
A Rodgers reunion?
McCarthy is inheriting a team with a talented — if expensive —
defense and an offense filled with question marks, most notably at
quarterback. Rookie Will Howard and veteran backup Mason Rudolph are
currently the only two players at the game's most important position
under contract for next season.
Aaron Rodgers, who spent 13 seasons alongside McCarthy in Green Bay,
will become a free agent in March after helping the Steelers win the
AFC North at age 42. McCarthy certainly seems open to a reunion.
“Definitely,” McCarthy said. “I don't see why you wouldn't.”
Rodgers said near the end of his 21st season that he would take some
time to decompress and meet with his inner circle before deciding
whether to try and return in 2026. The four-time MVP believes he'll
have options if he wants and pointed out it would be easier to play
in an offense he already knows. McCarthy's hire assures that would
be the case in Pittsburgh.
McCarthy plans to call the plays as he has throughout his coaching
career and wants to keep the same 3-4 defensive scheme the Steelers
have been using for decades, noting he's just had one defense ranked
in the top five during his head coaching career. It also happened to
be the same season the Packers won the Super Bowl.
There's a long way to go before that happens in Pittsburgh. There
are plenty of questions that need to be answered in the coming weeks
and months, including whether this offseason is the one the Steelers
try to find the franchise quarterback they've lacked since Ben
Roethlisberger's prime in the 2010s.
The work has already started, though McCarthy did take a brief
moment on the first official day of what could be his final head
coaching stop to take it all in. He posed for pictures surrounded by
the family that still calls him “Michael," the one dutifully moved
their NFL allegiances in lock-step with his career, the one that
will be there for him in Greenfield no matter how this goes.
“We can finally, hopefully, wear our Steelers swag, so let’s get
it," McCarthy said. “My heart is full.”
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