Steelers Now
When the Pittsburgh Steelers initially hired Mike McCarthy to be their new head football coach, there was some initial surprise amongst the national media. Part of that was that this was simply a move that broke the franchise’s tradition of hiring younger, defensive-minded up-and-comers, instead opting for an older, experienced play-caller. There are some similarities between him and his predecessor, Mike Tomlin; both won championships relatively early in their coaching careers and have comparably impressive records in the regular season while struggling to find any notable recent success in the postseason. As the club embarks on a new regime, what should fans expect to be different as they look to break their near decade-long drought without a playoff win?
It didn’t take long for McCarthy to put his fingerprints on the organization, as evidenced by just how many familiar faces are occupying position coaching roles or calling plays on both sides of the football. His mere arrival sparked the reunion with Aaron Rodgers, who was otherwise headed for retirement. Earlier in the free agency period, the front office also inked former Dallas Cowboys Rico Dowdle and Brock Hoffman to deals, both of whom will be given the chance to start this year. Six of Pittsburgh’s first seven selections on draft weekend came on the offensive side of the ball, perhaps most notably being quarterback Drew Allar in the third round, a strong-armed project for him to develop. It’s evident that his voice carries significant weight, and because of that, it’s reasonable to expect their organizational philosophy to shift while beginning to prioritize the more stable side of the ball even more.
During the interview process, McCarthy was able to sell the organization on his vision for fixing Pittsburgh’s problem at the most important position in sports, with Aaron Rodgers and Dak Prescott having MVP-caliber campaigns under his tutelage. In 2023, he regained play-calling authority, and as a result, the unit regained their mojo. During that season, the Cowboys were one of the most pass-happy teams in the NFL—they threw the ball on 66.7% of their non-garbage time plays (4.3% pass rate over expectation) and 57.6% of their first downs (5.8% PROE). Some of the year-over-year increase was merely due to Prescott being healthy, but in a perfect world, that’s how he envisions his offense functioning. Compare that with the post-Big Ben Steelers era that finished -4.1% in PROE from 2022 to 2025 with a myriad of different signal callers, and you start to understand how much different the play calling will be under his leadership.
The biggest difference between these two coaches from a process standpoint is how they approach fourth down decisions. Throughout his Cowboys tenure, McCarthy was well above league average in neutral situations that would increase the team’s win probability by at least 1.0%, an aggression that drastically increased with Prescott in the lineup. In those 2021 and 2023 seasons in particular, they ranked fourth in the...
