'It just seemed like it was meant to be.' Mike McCarthy comes home to coach the Pittsburgh Steelers

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 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.

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.

“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.

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.”

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Mike McCarthy, right, meets with reporters after being introduced as the new head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers by team owner Art Rooney II, left, in Pittsburgh Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Mike McCarthy, left, visits with Pittsburgh Steelers Pro Football Hall of Fame Mel Blount, right, after being introduced as the new head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Mike McCarthy, center, poses for a photo, after being introduced as the new head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers by team owner Art Rooney II, left, and general manager Omar Khan, right, in Pittsburgh Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

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)

FILE - Former Green Bay Packers head coach Mike McCarthy waves during halftime of an NFL football game against the Detroit Lions Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Matt Ludtke, File)

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — The Buffalo Bills stayed in-house by promoting offensive coordinator Joe Brady as their new head coach on Tuesday, in a move that provides continuity to a Josh Allen-led perennial winner that has accomplished everything short of reaching a Super Bowl.

The team announced Brady agreed to a five-year deal. He will be introduced as the head coach during a news conference on Thursday.

The 36-year-old Brady just completed his fourth season in Buffalo and his second full season as coordinator. He previously served as quarterbacks coach before taking over the offense after Ken Dorsey was fired midway through the 2023 season.

Brady's promotion came a little more than a week after Sean McDermott was fired following a nine-year tenure.

He has no previous head coaching experience over eight NFL seasons. Brady broke into the league with the New Orleans Saints by spending two seasons as an offensive assistant under Sean Payton. He left the Saints to serve as passing game coordinator on LSU’s 2019 national championship team, with Joe Burrow at quarterback.

Considered an up-and-coming head coaching candidate, Brady returned to the NFL by taking over as the Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator before being fired late into the 2021 season.

Brady shared a bond with McDermott, as both played college at William & Mary. Brady played receiver and upon graduating in 2012, he took on a role with the Tribe as linebackers coach.

Brady was the first to interview for the Bills job in a search that began on Jan. 21. Aside from Buffalo, Brady also interviewed for five other NFL openings, including still-existing vacancies in Arizona and Las Vegas.

Buffalo eventually met with nine candidates in an interview process led by general manager Brandon Beane and included Allen sitting in on meetings. Buffalo was the 10th and final team to have a coaching vacancy, and missed out on interviewing John Harbaugh, who was hired by the New York Giants.

Among the candidates were former Giants coach Brian Daboll, who was Buffalo’s offensive coordinator before landing the job in New York. The Bills also interviewed Jacksonville offensive coordinator Grant Udinski and 44-year-old quarterback Philip Rivers, who removed his name from consideration three days after meeting with Buffalo.

Under Brady, the Bills offense took a far more balanced approach in part to take the burden off Allen. Brady also introduced what became known as an “Everybody Eats,” share-the-wealth approach to the passing game, which followed Buffalo trading leading receiver Stefon Diggs to Houston in April 2024.

The approach worked the following season, with Allen earning AP NFL MVP honors for his 28 touchdowns passing (plus 12 rushing) and a career-low six interceptions and a receiving group led by Khalil Shakir’s 76 catches for 821 yards.

This season, the Bills offense ranked fourth in the NFL in total yards and tied for fourth in scoring. Though Buffalo was knocked for a middling group of receivers, fourth-year running back James Cook finished with 1,621 yards rushing to become the first Bills player to lead the NFL in rushing since O.J. Simpson in 1976.

Brady said he's learned from his short stint in Carolina. Rather than blame it on limited access to players because of the COVID-19 pandemic, running back Christian McCaffrey being sidelined by injuries or a revolving door at quarterback, Brady put it on himself.

“I don’t think you’re ever going to out-genius. I got let go from my last job trying to think like that,” Brady said in December 2023. “I wasn’t going to make excuses for why it didn’t work out. I was going to figure out where were my blind spots, and what I can do better if I get the next opportunity.”

It’s now on Brady to get the Bills over the hump in the postseason.

In nine seasons, McDermott transformed a longtime loser — ending Buffalo’s 17-year playoff drought in his first season — into a franchise that became the NFL’s only team to qualify for the postseason in each of the past seven years.

Buffalo had 10 or more wins in each of those seven years and enjoyed a five-year stretch as AFC East champions before going 12-5 and finishing second to Super Bowl-bound New England this season.

On the downside, the Bills became the NFL’s first team to win a playoff round in six straight years but not make the Super Bowl. The closest Buffalo came were AFC championship game appearances in the 2020 and ’24 seasons, both ending in losses at Kansas City.

The shortcomings led to owner Terry Pegula saying he believed the Bills “hit the proverbial playoff wall” in firing McDermott following a 33-30 overtime loss at Denver in the divisional round on Jan. 17.

Buffalo’s past three playoff losses were each decided by three points. That doesn’t include a 42-36 overtime loss to Kansas City in the 2021 divisional round. The game was dubbed “13 Seconds,” reflecting how much time was left in regulation for the Chiefs to gain 44 yards to set up Harrison Butker’s game-tying 49-yard field goal.

The coaching change comes with Allen entering his ninth NFL season and set to turn 30 in May. The franchise is beginning a new era with the Bills moving across the street into a newly constructed $2.1 billion stadium.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

FILE - Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady stands on the field before an NFL football game against the Miami Dolphins, Nov. 9, 2025, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo/Doug Murray, File)