By Owen HillmanShareNewsweek is a Trust Project memberThe Pittsburgh Steelers hired Mike McCarthy to replace 19-year head coach Mike Tomlin, and there have been mixed reactions about it. However, McCarthy is getting a ringing endorsement from a Hall of Fame Steelers coach. Former coach Bill Cowher went on "The NFL Today" show on CBS Sports to discuss the hire, and he said he loves it.
“I really like this hire,” Cowher said, “No. 1, he’s an offensive minded guy. He grew up under Marty Schottenheimer, so he knows the value in running the football…everywhere he’s been, he’s uplifted the offense. If you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers now, there’s been inconsistencies in the last couple of years, and it’s the inability to have a reliable offense.”
Cowher has stats to back him up. In the 18 years McCarthy was a head coach with the Green Bay Packers (2006-18) and Dallas Cowboys (2020-24), he’s had an top-10 scoring offense 10 times and a top five scoring offense seven times. He developed Aaron Rodgers into a two-time MVP winner (2011, 2014) and revitalized Dak Prescott into an MVP finalist in 2023. He won the Super Bowl in 2010, too.
However, there are some that argue that McCarthy can hold his teams back. He has a record of 11-11 in the NFL playoffs, never making the Super Bowl or the NFC Championship past 2010. He also doesn’t do well with midseason backup quarterbacks. In the four seasons his starting quarterback (2013, 2017, 2020, 2024) was injured midway through the season, he was just 28-36-1.
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Cowher has a similar resume to McCarthy. In 15 years with the Steelers, Cowher had a 149-90-1 record and a .623-win percentage, which is just five one-hundredths higher than McCarthy with the Packers (.618, 125-77-2). He led his team to Super Bowl XXX and won Super Bowl XL against the Seattle Seahawks.
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