What Does a McCarthy Offense Look Like?

I’ve been trying to remember what were the key characteristics of MM’s offense in Green Bay. I’ve ignored Dallas because watching the Cowboys play football is too tedious, even for me.

I found these:
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/70...e-system-playbook/?source=user_shared_article

This was Google’s AI summary:

• Quick slant routes to WRs like CeeDee Lamb.
• Running back quick-outs and flat routes.
• Using heavy personnel sets to set up play-action.
• Zone-blocking run plays to "run the ball down [defense's] throats"

My memory recalls slants, TE crossers, early down runs, and then deep shots being back shoulder throws along the sideline where Rodgers just mind melded with a WR.

I also remember a great deal of outside zone run plays. Then play action shots.

Put it all together....and it really, to my hazy memory, seems a lot like an Arthur Smith offense only with multi-wr sets instead of TEs and RBs.

Interestingly enough, Smith and McCarthy all connect back to Bill Walsh. MM through Holmgren and Hackett. And Smith through several steps and the Kubiak-Shanahan mafia.

This all leads me to wonder if the formations and player groupings will look a ton different...but will the plays?

Wide zone runs, slants, and fade balls along the sideline....that all sounds pretty familiar.

What does anyone else recall from how MM offenses were built in previous stops?

 

His offenses are a lot of timing, zone running, and YAC concepts. I think there are a lot of high percentage throws in there, and play action as well. He is known for saying that his scheme is a bit fluid to be able to accommodate his QB's strengths and not a rigid system that the QB has to fit into.

 

Ok. So that is all just "West Coast" offense fundamental concepts.

Arthur Smith's offense was timing, zone running, YAC, and play action.

I might just be stuck on nothing here....but I am picturing Arthur Smith's offense out of three WR sets...

I remember MM being a better play caller than Arthur Smith. I also remember him doing a far better job of getting the ball to playmakers rather than the back-up to the back-up.

I just wonder if the concepts are going to fairly similar.

 

That is a great question. +1 for you.

Mike McCarthy saw significant success with Dak Prescott, whom I viewed as a top 10-15 quarterback during McCarthy's tenure—specifically as a player who performed well but struggled against elite competition when scheme alone wasn't enough.

Statistically, the Cowboys finished 2025 as the NFL's most efficient rushing offense, ranking first in both EPA per rush and rushing success rate.

Based on my observations, McCarthy runs a West Coast offense but incorporates deep shots more frequently than most. He also maintains a strong ground game with the personnel available to him.

In terms of offensive coaching and play-calling, I would rate him an 8.5 out of 10. I give him a similar grade for design of the offense and a 9 out of 10 for execution. While he may not be in the same tier as Sean Payton or Sean McVay, he is a very good coach.

Steeler fans might be pleasantly surprised with the offense in 2026.

 

Well, fundamentally both are "west coast" believers. Smith prefers large sets and McCarthy the 3 WR sets. He tends to make slot WR types highly successful. I'm sure there will be crossover to the systems, but I don't think they will be so similar that they will look and feel similar. McCarthy won't throw it like 100 times to the backs like Smith did. He likely won't employ as much tackle eligible, and I'd imagine he'd take more shots downfield, as his teams have always had high caliber passing attacks (and often outperformed in yards compared to attempts against the league).

 

Here is an interesting but dated article with really low quality moving pictures on McCarthy offense: https://theriotreport.com/mike-mccarthy-panthers-scheme-breakdown/2/

This one reaches similar conclusions but without the grainy zapruder film images: https://www.bloggingtheboys.com/202...s-offensive-scheme-kellen-moore-jason-garrett

Some Cowboys focused dude made a video:

One thing that does seem kind of clear....for the 332 off-season in a row, the PLAN would seem to be to re-make the Steelers into an outside zone running team. I wonder if this coaching staff finally has success?

 

It all hinges on the Oline. Dallas had a pretty damn good line for Dak and RBs.
Ours yes young but still suspect. It's tiresome. Seems Steelers can't get it nailed down. Looks to be projecting upward then Houston happens. UGH

 

I know one thing for sure is that practice will be different than anything Tomlin ran.

 

In what way

 

Less hitting?

 

My impression of how they ran practice was less emphasis on running plays until its committed to muscle memory and having them down right to more school yard ball and working on concepts without focus. You would never hear practice reports where say Bell, Harris, Conner, Warren had dropped a few attempted screen passes and so Ben and the offense spent 20 minutes and made sure they worked on that issue. We'd never see the staff looking at the weekly opponent and saying these guys are weak on the left vs the run so we are going to runs plays at that weakness let's drill on those all week. Seven shots while entertaining to the fans at camp was worthless because 60% of what they try they never use although they did try to force the back shoulder fade into every red zone package when they had a tall reciever. Chase Claypool's sophomore season comes to mind.

Ive seen McCarthy's stuff behind the scenes and he seems more focused on coaching in practice and correcting mistakes than Tomlin and Ben were or its entirely possible I'm talking out my ass.

 

James Harrison had a 100 yard pick 6 in a SUPER BOWL from a specific issue recognised and focused on during practice.

 

CeeDee Lamb hit on it the most.

The basic premise is;
To be able to force the run against opposing defenses.
Read and react in the passing to what the defense is giving up and force mismatches and take advantage of those mismatches.
Play solid defense, get pressure and force mistakes.
He does like to take shots.

Breaking tendencies is the key today to keep Next Gen stats from predicting what you do.

 

Why do you say that? Practice is heavily dictated by the CBA, not the coach.

 

Sometimes you just get got by good teams. Houston's front 7 was absolutely dominant for the season. They were fantastic. They just beat our line. It doesn't mean our line sucks... they just didn't beat the best when they had an opportunity.

Our OL on the middle and right side is quite good. Cook/Jones are still question marks (and we don't know which rookie will be competing with Anderson at LG), but our OL as a whole is pretty good. Definitely an above average to borderline top 10 unit.

 

OK. Those are some great general offensive principles. I suspect that almost every football coach since Pop Warner has said something similar.

HOW is MM achieving those goals?

From his time in Green Bay I FEEL like I remember a lot of off-tackle running, Rodgers checking in and out of things at the line (so I guess RPO?), and a TON of Rodgers back shoulder throws to either Jordy Nelson or Davantae Adams.

I remember there being a number of highly talented WRs. One of the things I found (posted upthread) indicated that MM's offense was built not on complementary routes, but on WRs winning individual battles. I am not able to speak to that. If so, it could be as simple as....why not? Do you see how many talented WRs we have on the roster? And my QB is one of the smartest and most accurate passers to ever lace them up. I will be very interested to see what MM does with far less WR talent available to him and a much diminished QB room. At least currently.

But I am not willing to trust my memory for much. So I thought I would ask this group. Seems we all have a vague general sense of what MM wants to do on offense but not a great deal of insight on to how he is going to do it.

 

See above. Yes the CBA sets the framework but it doesn't limit what you are actually practicing. If you look at how the Steelers played in the last decade at least you'll see some trends such as lack of concentration when catching the ball like DJ's clear drops of catchable passes. It always seemed that while they acknowledged errors they really weren't concerned about correcting them through practice. Other times you could tell position groups were not learning the basics such as the Oline, Dline, and inside backers. Issues on the offensive line were things like what to do when you have no one to block. They looked lost and unsure and created issues time after time. There were times the LG had no one and decided to chip in on the center's man who wasn't expecting help. It threw the center off balance and opened a hole that a lb was able to exploit because the LG was now out of position. Too many times under Tomlin they looked like they went through the motions at practice and didnt work on perfecting things like good enough was the goal.

 

We will see. Something tells me that the same players will commit the same mistakes as these are professional adults and have to take some profession responsibility to do their job. I don't hand hold the people I manage, if they don't do their job or have an inability to learn their job, then we move on.

My gut tells me this team will finis the season 9-8, 10-7 and very little difference will be noticed until they can have a 6-11 or worse season and draft a new QB.

 

Yep it will be a wait and see. Im a big proponent of you play like you practice and they had some sloppy practices for sure.

 

I wasn't in the practices so I wouldn't know.

 

Well, I can go through a book of pro-offensive principals.
That could be as many as 1,500 plays. Each play can be a substantial word count.
Which plays he incorporates as a basic theme is yet another topic.
And as you bring up, how we man them or implement them with what personnel is yet another topic.
I'm not sure I am up to all that but let me stew on it.

 

What some people, and I don't mean You, don't seem to understand is that the Qb is big time responsible for where, when, and who gets the ball. From every thing I've seen over the year of football, you can run the exact same plays, and concepts with 3 different Qbs in a row, and you will see 3 different examples of who they seen as the man to get the ball, why they went there, and what they didn't see, and I'm not talking about on a pad, in practice, or on a blackboard ,but on the field when in real time they see the D alignment, the shifts, and try gaging who is coming, and who isn't.

 

Ugh, 'the beat your man offense'??? How about route designs to put DBs in conflict? This is what teams seemed to do to the Steelers all season.

Honestly not sure Rodgers can run the PA deep routes with consistency anymore. Some of the misses last season were like wtf? Now, was it on the receiver, or Rodgers? Who knows. But since 2021 he has thrown far fewer deep balls than he did in the mid 20-teens.

Would love to see more slants and hitting receivers in stride. That timing takes a lot of reps with the same guys. Something Rodgers doesn't have with the Steelers.

 

Kind of my response to the stuff I turned up in my random google searches. Steelers seem to struggle when you have guys moving horizontal at different levels. The stuff I turned up had alot of WRs moving at the same depth.

I think it might just be the height of irony if the name of the dude in charge changed but the complaints from fans stayed the same!

What do I really know? Not much. Be interesting to see of MM modifies things to accommodate the lesser talent all across the skill positions he is walking into here compared to GB and Dallas. Or maybe he spends the next 2 drafts upgrading to get to the point where they can run his stuff like GB did.

 

If so, it came out really well