{"id":706585,"date":"2026-01-26T15:14:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T15:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/706585\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T15:14:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T15:14:14","slug":"bill-cowher-defends-pittsburgh-steelers-hiring-mike-mccarthy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/706585\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Cowher defends Pittsburgh Steelers hiring Mike McCarthy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Steelers hiring Mike McCarthy hasn\u2019t exactly been met with widespread praise among sports media\u2019s chattering class. With a long track record of hiring up-and-coming, young defensive-minded coaches, hiring a veteran coach like McCarthy, 62, with an offensive pedigree is about the least-Steelers thing the team could\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n<p>But maybe that\u2019s exactly why the hire will work, at least according to former Steelers coach and current CBS Sports studio analyst Bill Cowher. Appearing on Sunday\u2019s episode of\u00a0The NFL Today+, Cowher explained why he \u201creally like[s]\u201d the McCarthy hire.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cI really like this hire \u2026 everywhere he\u2019s been he\u2019s uplifted the offense.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CowherCBS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">@CowherCBS<\/a> on the Steelers hiring Mike McCarthy as next head coach. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/21OX8wZ3wm\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/21OX8wZ3wm<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NFL on CBS \ud83c\udfc8 (@NFLonCBS) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NFLonCBS\/status\/2015465265748644210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 25, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really like this hire for this reason,\u201d Cowher began. \u201cNumber one, he\u2019s an offensive-minded guy, Mike McCarthy, everywhere he\u2019s been. He grew up under Marty Schottenheimer, so he understands the value of running the football. He coached Joe Montana, he coached Brett Favre, he coached Aaron Rodgers, he coached Dak Prescott. Everywhere he\u2019s been, he\u2019s uplifted the offense. And if you look at the Pittsburgh Steelers right now, if there\u2019s been inconsistencies in the last recent years, it\u2019s been the instability of a reliable offense. They got defensive guys that can sack the quarterback, they can create turnovers. So I like where they\u2019re at.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe also walks into that room with credibility. So I like what they did. They\u2019ll put together a good staff right here. Oh yeah, he\u2019s from Pittsburgh too. \u2026He knows the tradition. He knows what the expectation is. He knows what that fanbase is all about. He\u2019s a Yinzer. I think he\u2019s a very good hire for the Pittsburgh Steelers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Is it surprising for Cowher to defend his former team? Of course not. But he does bring up some solid points that look past the fact that McCarthy is a \u201cretread\u201d hire. There are few other coaches with similar pedigrees when it comes to developing quarterbacks, something the Steelers need. He\u2019s also decidedly different than every other Steelers coach since Chuck Noll was hired in 1969. For a team that has been stuck in 10-7\/9-8 purgatory for the past five seasons, maybe this is the type of change the franchise needs.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pittsburgh Steelers hiring Mike McCarthy hasn\u2019t exactly been met with widespread praise among sports media\u2019s chattering class.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706586,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2055],"tags":[19409,7,7866,6,520,57,2360,426,41245],"class_list":["post-706585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-bill-cowher","tag-football","tag-mike-mccarthy","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers","tag-the-nfl-today"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115962057034023451","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=706585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}