{"id":713535,"date":"2026-01-29T08:09:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/713535\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T08:09:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:09:24","slug":"how-did-that-go-steelers-hiring-mike-mccarthy-reminds-analyst-of-team-drafting-kenny-pickett","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/713535\/","title":{"rendered":"‘How Did That Go?’: Steelers Hiring Mike McCarthy Reminds Analyst Of Team Drafting Kenny Pickett"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh native Mike McCarthy has<\/a> come home. He\u2019s the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 new head coach, fulfilling his childhood dream. However, not everyone is happy for McCarthy. Many fans reacted negatively when the team announced that he will succeed Mike Tomlin. The Steelers hiring a head coach with Pittsburgh ties reminds analyst Matt Harmon of when the team drafted Kenny Pickett in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to be that was 60 percent of the selling point,\u201d Harmon said recently on the Football 301 podcast.<\/a> \u201cBy the way, the last time you guys did that, Pittsburgh, that was when you drafted Kenny Pickett. \u2018He\u2019s right next door. We looked all over and we fell in love with the girl next door.\u2019 How did that go?\u201d<\/p>\n

While Pickett didn\u2019t grow up in Pittsburgh, the city was still familiar with him. <\/a>He played college football at the University of Pittsburgh from 2017-2021. Pitt shares a facility with the Steelers, so they had plenty of chances to get a firsthand look at Pickett.<\/p>\n

The Steelers drafted him in the first round in 2022, and that proved to be a huge mistake. Pickett was a bust, only lasting two seasons with the Steelers. He delayed their ability to find their next franchise quarterback.<\/p>\n

Pickett starring at Pitt wasn\u2019t the only reason why the Steelers drafted him, but it certainly didn\u2019t hurt his chances. There\u2019s some concern that the team is walking down a similar path with McCarthy. The Steelers interviewing several other coaches with connections to Pittsburgh isn\u2019t helping that narrative, either.<\/p>\n

However, this isn\u2019t the same situation. For example, McCarthy has shown that he can win in the NFL. He won a Super Bowl with the Green Bay Packers, and he had several successful seasons with the Dallas Cowboys.<\/p>\n

Also, McCarthy has a history of developing quarterbacks. That seemed to be one of the biggest reasons why the Steelers hired him. They\u2019re hoping that he can help them avoid repeating their mistake with Pickett and finally find their next franchise quarterback.<\/p>\n

Still, McCarthy being from Pittsburgh shouldn\u2019t influence people\u2019s opinions of him too much, positively or negatively. His decades of NFL coaching experience coaching paint a better picture of who he is. McCarthy getting to coach his hometown team is a nice story. However, he\u2019ll need to win games for it to stay that way.<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh native Mike McCarthy has come home. He\u2019s the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 new head coach, fulfilling his childhood dream.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":713536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,34666,570,5145,7866,49,48,57],"class_list":{"0":"post-713535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-football-301","10":"tag-kenny-pickett","11":"tag-matt-harmon","12":"tag-mike-mccarthy","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-football","15":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115977372795159352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713535","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=713535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/713536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}