Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers are expected to speak with former Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers head coach and Pittsburgh native Mike McCarthy about their head coaching vacancy, according to a report on Sunday by Tom Pelissero of NFL Network.
McCarthy, 62 is the ninth candidate to be positively identified to be part of the Steelers coaching search. He is by the far the oldest, only the second former NFL head coach, and the third offensive-minded coach out of the group.
McCarthy did not coach in the NFL in 2025, taking the year off after the Cowboys let his contract expire at the end of the 2024 season.
In his 18 seasons, McCarthy has a 174-112-2 record and a .608 winning percentage. He had just five losing seasons out of 18. He has an 11-11 playoff record, notably leading the Packers over the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV as a Wild Card team in 2010, but also going 1-3 in the playoffs during his tenure as the head coach in Dallas.
McCarthy could portend a reunion with Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers. It was expected that the 42-year-old would move on from the Steelers after the departure of head coach Mike Tomlin, who Rodgers cited as the main reason for him to come to Pittsburgh.
But Rodgers and McCarthy spent 13 years together in Green Bay, and his former coach was a big reason that Rodgers considered Pittsburgh in the first place.
“I feel like Pittsburgh has been a part of my career from the beginning, playing for Mike McCarthy for 13 years, having Tommy Clements as my quarterback coach forever, Dom Capers, Kevin Greene, Darren Perry, Ben McAdoo, Frank Cignetti, Luke Getsy — I don’t want to forget anybody, but a lot of Yinzers in my life,” Rodgers said during his introductory press conference in Pittsburgh last June.
The Steelers also could be interviewing McCarthy to balance the extreme youth and lack of experience of some of their other candidates. Only Brian Flores has been a head coach in the NFL before and only he and Jeff Hafley have been a head coach at any level. Nate Scheelhaase and Klay Kubiak have yet to even be an NFL coordinator. So it could be illustrative to Steelers president Art Rooney II and general manager Omar Khan, who are running the team’s search, how a veteran coach might tackle the problem of getting the Steelers back on track, compared to what the younger cohort thinks.
Assuming that McCarthy interviews in-person with the team, he will be the second in-person interview to be reported, following Flores.
McCarthy also interviewed for, but did not get the New York Giants head coaching job, and is also a candidate for the Tennessee Titans vacancy.
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Steelers Schedule Head Coach Interview with Pittsburgh Native
