What are Reasonable Expectations for Mike McCarthy in year one with the Steelers?

Some of the kiddies here like to add nicknames

 

well
FAT MIKE wouldn't help
and
neither coach can be KILLER MIKE

 

I think he will win some games too, but my point is that far too many people are trying to make the determination of how much success or failure he will have when we don't know the first thing about what will be in place by the start of training camp.

So much will depend on the draft, and who they choose to be the starting quarterback. Then they have to use the roster to fit the schemes they want to run, but that may not be the talent that they prefer to work best in what they run. It will take time to adjust the roster to have all the talent they need to optimize what it is they are trying to do on both sides of the ball. Of course, good coaches adjust the scheme to get the most out of who they have on the current roster, but they may not currently have enough of the players that are the perfect fit for what they want to do. That will take a little bit of time and adjustment as well.

The people that want to say that McCarthy needs to win 12 or 13 games this season or he is a disappointment are the same people that claim that the roster sucked for Mike Tomlin and he got the most out of them, but now Mike McCarthy apparently has a stacked roster and nothing should be able to stop them from playing well and winning tons of games.

What they are neglecting to say is that Mike Tomlin had everything in place from a coaching perspective because he was here so long. All he had to do was place the talent into the roles of the system that was already in place and integrate it into schemes that have been used for years and years. Everyone was supposed to know what they were doing because everything was in place for so long. It is a huge advantage to have the entire team on the same page and knowing the language of the systems and what was expected of them within those systems from year to year. Anyone pretending that it doesn't matter that there is going to be a new offense and potentially a young quarterback learning that new offense with no NFL experience are people that are trying to set McCarthy up for failure.

The other thing that bothers me is that way too many act like Mike Tomlin is the only reason that the Steelers were successful. The fact of the matter that the Steelers organization has been the most successful organization over the last 50+ years. Mike McCarthy will have the full backing of the Pittsburgh Steelers, and that means something. The Steelers were great long before Mike Tomlin could ride a bike. They have been great at picking coaches and putting those coaches in position to win a lot of football games.

They are the organization that hired Bill Nunn, Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, Tom Donahoe, Kevin Colbert, Mike Tomlin, and now Mike McCarthy. Every organization makes mistakes. They make bad hires or have some bad stretches periodically. This stuff happens, but even if I didn't agree with hiring Mike McCarthy, I can't sit here and say that the Steelers don't know what they're doing because history says they do until proven otherwise over a longer period of time.

 

You are not a lone voice in the wilderness. There are many saying that McCarthy isn't going to succeed and they don't think he is as good a coach as Tomlin.

To your credit, you give some real reasons based on your interpretation of things while in close proximity to his time in Green Bay, and not the blind statements some are making about it. I also know that you hope you are wrong and you want to win. It just sometimes comes off as you are projecting nothing but negativism.

There are plenty of people here that are now demanding that Mike McCarthy leads the Steelers to at least one playoff win, but they didn't demand it of Mike Tomlin for almost a decade. This loyalty to Tomlin by some has just grown into ridiculousness. Many are saying poor Tomlin didn't have the roster to get this team over the hump and he was held back by the ownership and he couldn't develop a quarterback.

Those same fans are now threatening that McCarthy better start winning playoff games right now. If he doesn't, he sucks.

They also say that McCarthy better develop a quarterback into something special right away even though Mike Tomlin didn't successfully develop a young quarterback over his 19 seasons as head coach.

All this, and Mike Tomlin stepped down! Imagine if they threw him out on his butt. Oh, the horror.

At some point you would think that any animosity about Tomlin would fade, and everyone would try to get behind McCarthy and actually see what he and his coaching staff do before banging on him with every keystroke.

 

You just keep spouting the same nonsense over and over again.

Did Ben sneak into your basement and bang your blowup girlfriend when you weren't there?

Where does all this bitterness towards a Hall of Fame quarterback come from?

We need an origin story.

 

All of that contributed to the Steelers losing and they lost the turnover battle 3-0.

 

The bold part here seems kind of silly IMO.

Tomlin certainly had flaws. There are lots of things to complain about legitimately. Especially if we think about later in his tenure. In particular, I think he wasn't good at understanding load sharing for RBs so we often had RB1s hurt in the playoffs (this especially sucked with Bell who was amazing in the playoffs, but didn't get nearly enough playoff games because we ran the wheels off him every year). He wasn't good at hiring successful coordinators. I also think that toward the end he had too much control. I think both Cowher and Tomlin functioned much better when they were the motivator / facilitator and they had very good to elite coordinators (particularly LeBeau).

But "early on" in Tomlin's tenure was pretty amazing. The list of coaches in their first 5 years like this has to be pretty slim. Just like Ben looked like he had a chance to be the GOAT early on in his career.

First 5 years:

• 55 wins total...average of 11 wins / season (when we only played 16 games)
• 3x 12 win seasons.
  
• Made the playoffs in 4/5 of the first years
• SB win in year 2
• AFCC in year 4

 

I think the difference is that MM without an above average QB is probably worse to a lot worse than Tomlin without an above average QB.

One of the interesting things I heard when he was hired was also that MM very rarely loses to below 0.500 teams (significantly better than Tomlin here). But since Tomlin has a better total record, it also means that MT was significantly better record against teams that are > 0.500.

I think that last part is something that we've kind of ended up taking for granted. We all (reasonably) complain when we lose that game to a crappy team because we only know how to play in "rock fight" games. But I think many don't realize that the same incredibly boring style of football also let us win a bunch of games against teams that were better than us.

I think we'll win fewer games under MM (unless he can significantly improve our QB play...which could happen). But we'll be a lot more entertaining / watchable than we have been...especially if we compare to the Kenny/Canada years.

Tomlin was the football equivalent of those neutral zone trap teams in the 90s NHL. Super boring. But fairly successful.

 

Also Ben big oaf staying out after curfew drinking whiskey and singing PIANO MAN and Mike Tomlin did nothing.
People wonder how and why other players later acted the way they did.

Hey Ben!! Tell me again what the Steelers need to do again?!?!

 

Get drunk Blow off some steam, maybe even let a hottie blow your steam , but take it from me Always get a release form and 2 forms of ID.. It probably wouldn't hurt to check her BAC and record it as well .. If over then refuse the act and move on..

 

Uhhh....I believe in another thread you were talking about making bets.

That is literally all that odds in betting are. Past performances and precedents to project future outcomes.

Everyone can look at the previous data and come to different conclusions. No problems with that. Personally, how I develop my expectations for each Steelers season, is I look at what teams in similar situations, track record of new players or coaches, trends for particular scheme approaches, etc have faired recently in the NFL. Then I determine what I would bet my mortgage on being the most likely outcome.

For the Steelers and the new coaching staff, they are bucking some significant trends. It by no means says they can not or will not. But if I had to risk something I gave a crap about....I would bet on the 2026 Steelers being solidly mediocre across the board.

 

All fair enough.

Perhaps my perspective is skewed to far to taking emotion out of it. Honestly, the analytical part of thinking/talking about football is what I find the most enjoyable as fan - particularly as I get older. During the games on Sundays or whatever, then the emotional part comes out. Where I totally think there are specific spots on my couch I have to sit on or where I believe the Steelers can pull off some improbable comeback. But as soon as the TV gets turned off, that fades for me.

I think that a great number of people approach the Steelers with hope. Or any other team that anyone might be a fan of. For instance, I keep thinking the Sixers are going to be good. And then every season ever happens and they are both unlucky and disappointing.

I think the off-season hope surrounding the Steelers is just going off the scale. And that has actual consequences for people, I think.

For instance, and this is NOT an attempt to defend or applaud Tomlin, how many of the folks that wanted to fire Tomlin last season were swayed by all the pre-season and early season "hope" fueled reports that the Steelers were a SB caliber team? That was never true. But the dude on the TV or the internet said it....and it became true for legions of Steelers fans. It is a pattern I see repeated over and over again.

The Steelers "fail" to meet totally unrealistic "hope" based expectations. And then the discussion is how the team underperformed and does not meet their potential. But the potential was never real. The frustration/anger/whatever that most fans are feeling is self-inflicted.

Honestly, while I am not super-jazzed that Tomlin left...it isn't that big of deal for me. I am looking forward to watching a "not Arthur Smith" offense. I wanted to hit myself with a hammer on almost every non-Rodgers led 2 minute drill offensive series the past 2 seasons. I despise almost everything about how Smith runs his offense. That alone has me excited to watch the 2026 Steelers. I still don't think they will be any good, but I am eagerly awaiting watching them play.

 

I think his origin story might start with Darwin

 

I believe we all as Steelers fans are going to give him a chance, and I promise that I hope I'm able to say later that his is the greatest HC the Steelers ever had, but some of us are just looking at his history.
I don't know about you , but if Tomlin is continuously condemned for not winning a playoff game in the last 9 years even with the Qbs we've had, has went to 2 SBs, and had a 8-12 playoff record, then shouldn't we be able to wonder about a HC that had not one, but two MVP Qbs, and another Qb that was a rookie of the year Qb, and has only been to one SB, and has a 11-11 playoff record with those Qbs?? I'm not condemning him, I'm just wondering. Again, as long as He is the HC Herr, I will be rooting, and rooting hard for him.