Steelers New Coach and Other Football Stuff

Today is perhaps my favorite day on the Sports Year Calendar - Championship Sunday, the two penultimate games of the NFL season that will determine who will meet in the Super Bowl. (Question:  Can two separate items, football games in this case, be considered "penultimate"? I will leave that for the grammarians among you.) However, consideration of those games has been moved to the back burner because of the news from Steelers headquarters that came down yesterday afternoon.

Yes, the Steelers have named the successor for for Mike Tomlin, and he is former Packers (Steelers fans will painfully recall that he won a Super Bowl in Green Bay) and Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy.  Is McCarthy a good football coach?  His record and his history prove that he absolutely is, but is he the right choice for the Steelers in 2026?  That is a much more difficult question to answer.  

For whatever my opinion is worth, which isn't much, I admit, the move does not excite me.  I was hoping that the team would do what they did the last three times that they hired a coach (Noll, Cowher, and Tomlin) and that is hire a young up and coming guy who would grow into the job and eventually achieve long term success with the team. The two names that intrigued me were Rams assistants Chris Shula and Nate Scheelhaas.  McCarthy is 62 years old and has been around the block many times.   This does not figure to be a long term position for him.  When Dan Rooney took over the running of the team from his father and hired Noll, it signified a change in the way the Steelers did business and it changed the fortunes of the franchise forever.  The McCarthy hire is the first one by Dan's son, Art Rooney II, and it smacks of the way Art Sr. did business:  hire a local pal, some guy off of the "Old Boys' Network" and hope it works out.  Rinse, lather, and repeat three years later.

Oh, I mentioned a "local guy".  Yep, Mike McCarthy is a local guy from the Pittsburgh neighborhood of Greenfield, right next the Squirrel Hill neighborhood where I grew up. This was the first thing mentioned when the news of the hiring was made, and, in fact, this was the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports section today:

I can only hope that THIS was not Rooney's and GM Omar Kahn's main consideration in hiring McCarthy for the job.   Where the guy is from and where he grew up should be just about the last consideration for such a job.

Final thought for today on this topic.  McCarthy is an offensively oriented coach.  I hope that this means that he will invest time and energies into developing a quarterback, hopefully for the long term, and I hope that such energies are invested in Will Howard as the team moves into 2026.  From what you hear and read, the team will not be in a position to draft a franchise QB this year, so why not go with Howard and see where it leads you?  The other option is another six month will-he-or-won't-he dance with now 42 year old Aaron Rodgers.  I am on record for loving seeing Rodgers here this past season, but the team needs to move on.

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Before moving on to the NFL games today, I can't go on without saluting what the University of Indiana did this past college football season and, more recently, winning the CFP Championship game this past Monday night.  The Hoosiers, you may have heard, have lost more games than any other college team in history, but this year that went 16-0 and won the National Championship.  It was a remarkable season and accomplishment and perhaps the best sports story of the year in America.

Fernando Mendoza score the game winner 

Indiana 27 - Miami 24

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That brings us to New England vs Denver in the AFC and Los Angeles Rams vs. Seattle in the NFC.   I admit to having strong rooting interests in both of these games due to two small parlay wagers that I made back on December 8:

		BET	PAYOUT
12/8	Parlay:Broncos/Rams Conf Champs	2.50	38.59
	Parlay: Patriots/Seahawks Conf Champs	2.50	54.83

I like my chances for a nice payout today, one way or another, but especially on the Pats/Seahawks combo.

Enjoy the games.

A Football Week

 

Almost a week has passed since the Steelers amazing 26-24 win over the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night clinched the AFC North for Pittsburgh and secured a home game for them in the first round of the NFL Playoffs.   I know that the Ravens kicker went wide right on a field goal attempt as the clock ran out that would have given the Ravens the win, but I lay the credit for this win squarely at the feet - or more likely, the arm and brain -  of QB Aaron Rodgers.  

With the Steelers trailing 13-17 deep into the fourth quarter, Rodgers calmly led the team on a 60 yard drive that resulted in a two yard TD run by Kenneth Gainwell.  Then, after the Ravens scored in only three plays (terrible lapse in the Steelers secondary), Rodgers did it again.  This time it was a six play, 65 yard drive that culminated in a Rodgers to Calvin Austin 26 yard TD pass.  Chris Boswell then missed the extra point (!!), which set up the excruciating last 55 seconds of the game,  wherein Lamar Jackson brought the Ravens downfield to set up a 44 yard FG with :02 remaining, but......WIDE RIGHT!

Rodgers leading not one but two fourth quarter comeback drives to win the game with time running out can be said to be truly heroic in the sporting sense of the word, but equally heroic was  the Ravens Lamar Jackson, who did the same thing: led two fourth quarter comeback drives that to win the game, but for the missed FG.

It was truly one of the great Steelers games ever, and for Rodgers his best game as a Steeler: 31-for-47, 294 yards, 1 TD, 0 Int.  As Mike Tomlin said, it was for games like this that the Steelers brought him to Pittsburgh. 

Oh, and lest anyone remind me, here is something I wrote in this space a mere 12 days ago:

• The Steelers desperately need a quarterback.....it sure isn't....42 year old Aaron Rodgers, and I say that with all due respect to Rodgers, who has played heroically at times this season.  The team took a shot to go all in with Rodgers for the season, and at times it looked like it was going to work, but in the end, it just isn't going to work out as everybody had hoped.

I now take those words back, and I will stick to them, regardless of the outcome of the game with the Texans on Monday night. And I will summarize Aaron Rodgers-as-a-Steeler with the words of singer Toby Keith:

"I ain't as good as I once was, but I'm as good once

As I ever was"

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Elsewhere in football, the semi-finals of the College Football Playoffs took place with a positively thrilling 31-27 win by Miami over Mississippi on Thursday, and a simply overwhelming 56-22 win by Indiana over Oregon.

It is hard to imagine that Indiana will not win the championship come Monday night, and it is hard to imagine that Hoosiers QB Fernando Mendoza will not be the number one pick in the NFL Draft in April.

Yes, these were his numbers against Oregon last night. in fact, in his two CFP games, he has thrown more TD passes than he has thrown incomplete passes.

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It is Wild Card Weekend in the NFL playoffs, and just for $hit$ and giggles, I'm predicting the following:

• Rams over Panthers
• Bears over Packers
• Jaguars over Bills
• Eagles over 49ers
• Patriots over Chargers
• Steelers over Texans

I've already bet on Rams -10.5 and Bears +1.5 for today, and yes, I know that ten and a half points is an awful lot of points to be laying in a Playoff game.