{"id":929864,"date":"2026-06-27T03:39:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/929864\/"},"modified":"2026-06-27T03:39:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T03:39:29","slug":"analyst-believes-mike-mccarthy-is-sleeper-to-win-coach-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/929864\/","title":{"rendered":"Analyst Believes Mike McCarthy Is Sleeper To Win Coach Of The Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his 19-year tenure as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin never won the NFL Coach of the Year award. NFL Media\u2019s Bucky Brooks believes Tomlin\u2019s successor has a chance to win<\/a> the award in his first season at the helm.<\/p>\n

Brooks picked longshot candidates who have a chance to win the league\u2019s major awards. For Coach of the Year, he tabbed Mike McCarthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the veteran coach can get Aaron Rodgers to play like a top-half quarterback in a system that minimizes his deficiencies as a 42-year-old \u2014 while simultaneously prodding defensive coordinator Patrick Graham to help the vaunted defense regain its swagger and suffocating style \u2014 the Steelers will make plenty of noise as contenders. Inherently, McCarthy could win his first Coach of the Year award,\u201d Brooks wrote.<\/p>\n

By its nature, the Coach of the Year award usually goes to someone who exceeded expectations. It doesn\u2019t always go to the coach who led his team to the most success. With the Steelers\u2019 expectations always high under Tomlin, it was an award he didn\u2019t add to his trophy cabinet.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one factor that makes McCarthy a good longshot candidate. Even with the staff turnover, the Steelers still have a talented roster that should be good enough to make the postseason.<\/p>\n

For McCarthy to be considered, the Steelers will have to play like one of the NFL\u2019s best teams. A 10-7 or even an 11-6 season probably isn\u2019t good enough for McCarthy to win, even though he\u2019s in his first year in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Tomlin never won the award, but the same can be said for McCarthy, despite having plenty of success with the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys. Simply meeting high expectations isn\u2019t good enough. The Steelers must look like a true contender this season for McCarthy to get consideration from voters.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. A new defensive coordinator could help Pittsburgh\u2019s talented defense play to its full potential.<\/p>\n

McCarthy is also taking over as offensive playcaller, which could help Aaron Rodgers prove his doubters wrong in his final NFL season and take the unit to the next level.<\/p>\n

But for McCarthy to win, a lot would have to go right for the Steelers. The current odds of him winning the award on DraftKings<\/a> are +1600, the seventh-most likely in the league. But when compared to coaches like John Harbaugh (+600) or Jesse Minter (+900), McCarthy\u2019s chances appear slim.<\/p>\n

It would take a special season in Pittsburgh for McCarthy to take home some hardware, but he\u2019ll do everything in his power to help his hometown team win. A trophy would be a nice bonus on top of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his 19-year tenure as head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Mike Tomlin never won the NFL Coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":929865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[8592,7,7866,6,26300,520,57,2360,426,691],"class_list":["post-929864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-bucky-brooks","tag-football","tag-mike-mccarthy","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-media","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers","tag-trending"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116819995103090096","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929864","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=929864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}