Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers need a new linebackers coach, after the news broke late last week that Aaron Curry will not be returning after two seasons with the club.
What are the options out the for the Steelers to replace him with? Let’s dive in:
Jerod Mayo spent four years as an inside linebackers coach with the New England Patriots before being promoted to head coach in 2024. That promotion didn’t go very well, with the Pats finishing near the bottom of the NFL. Mayo was fired after one season.
But the 38-year-old remains a coach on positive trajectory. The Patriots did not have near enough talent to compete in 2024, and owner Robert Kraft acknowledged as much, despite firing Mayo. The big question is whether he’d take same two steps back down to linebackers coach that he took on the way up.
The Steelers have mined from the Belichick coaching tree in the past when they hired Brian Flores, and Mayo would be another coach in that same mold coming to Pittsburgh.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. A young coach was promoted straight from linebackers coach to head coach and then fired a year later. The Las Vegas Raiders did basically the same thing to Antonio Pierce that the Patriots did to Mayo, with a couple of key differences.
Pierce was actually first hired as the interim head coach after Josh McDaniels was fired mid-season in 2023, so he had to earn his full-time spot, instead of having it worked into his contract like Mayo did.
Pierce, 46, is also more experienced as a coach. He spent four seasons at Arizona State, rising to assistant head coach and defensive coordinator before taking his first job with the Raiders in 2022.
The same questions remain about whether Piece would be willing to accept such a job, but either he or Mayo would be a home-run hire.
Mike Caldwell was not retained as the Raiders changed over from Pierce to Pete Carroll, and he could also be an option for the Steelers. The former NFL linebacker is the kind of well-traveled NFL assistant that seems to be Mike Tomlin’s preference lately.
Before two seasons with the Raiders, he was defensive coordinator of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Before that, he was a linebackers coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from 2019-21, inside linebackers coach and assistant head coach with the New York Jets from 2015-18, inside linebackers coach for the Arizona Cardinals from 2013-14 and linebackers coach for the Philadelphia Eagles from 2011-12.
A New Castle native and Mohawk and Pitt alum, this would be a return home for Scott McCurley. He has spent the last five seasons as linebackers coach under Mike McCarthy for the Dallas Cowboys. Before that, eh worked for McCarthy as an...
