{"id":766529,"date":"2026-02-21T09:59:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-21T09:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/766529\/"},"modified":"2026-02-21T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T09:59:18","slug":"near-and-dear-to-my-heart-new-steelers-dc-explains-why-he-chose-pittsburgh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/766529\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Near and dear to my heart\u2019: New Steelers DC explains why he chose Pittsburgh"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> defensive coordinator Patrick Graham<\/a> will take over the reins of the group from Teryl Austin<\/a>, who had been the defensive coordinator of the team since 2022. <\/p>\n

Graham did his first interview with the Steelers\u2019 team site, and said his ties to Mike McCarthy as well as the prestige of the Steelers\u2019 organization with their history of strong defensive football drew him to the to organization. <\/p>\n

It starts with Mike [McCarthy] and just knowing Mike from our time in Green Bay,\u201dGraham said<\/a>. \u201cJust how much I admired him throughout my career, being a young coach, and the respect I have for him. Then, the tradition of the Steelers. As a defensive coach, to be able to come here and to try to earn our place in that tradition is really near and dear to my heart, and I don\u2019t take it lightly. I\u2019m very fortunate to be in that situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graham worked under McCarthy in Green Bay as the linebackers coach and run game coordinator in 2018 before being hired by Brian Flores to become his defensive coordinator in 2019. <\/p>\n

After 2019, Graham left Miami and headed to the Giants, where he was their defensive coordinator from 2020 to 2021. Graham then took a leap to Las Vegas, where he has been the Raiders\u2019 defensive coordinator ever since, even being retained across multiple staffs. <\/p>\n

Graham came up in the NFL under Bill Belichick in New England. He first entered the NFL in 2009 as a coaching assistant after being at Toledo as their defensive line coach. <\/p>\n

He coached the defensive line and linebackers for New England before eventually ascending up the NFL ladder to being the Giants\u2019 defensive line coach in 2016.<\/p>\n

Over his career as a defensive coordinator, there have been mixed results with Graham\u2019s defenses, though the talent across many of the teams he has worked with has fallen flat. <\/p>\n

A graduate of Yale in 2001, Graham played defensive line in college before heading over to the college ranks as a coach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Pittsburgh Steelers defensive coordinator Patrick Graham will take over the reins of the group from Teryl Austin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":766530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[265,7,6,520,57,2360,426],"class_list":{"0":"post-766529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","13":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","14":"tag-steelers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116108038722776261","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766529","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=766529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/766530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}