A new voice on the headset: Steelers open McCarthy era against a depleted Falcons team

For the first time in 19 seasons, the man in the Steelers' headset is not Mike Tomlin.

Tomlin stepped down Jan. 13, the night after another wild card exit, ending a run that started in 2007. Mike McCarthy takes over Sunday as only the fourth head coach the Steelers have hired in 58 seasons. In Pittsburgh, that is not a coaching change. That is a geological event.

McCarthy is a Homestead kid who grew up watching this team, and he is not treating Sunday as a coronation.

"You're guaranteed 17 games," he said last week. "Obviously, it's our home opener, but really, I think the honeymoon's kind of over now."

He has reason to keep the temperature down. McCarthy is 11-7 in season openers across stops in Green Bay and Dallas, but 0-2 when debuting with a new organization — shut out 26-0 by the Bears in his 2006 Packers debut, then beaten 20-17 by the Rams in his 2020 Cowboys debut. He also gets to make this one alongside Aaron Rodgers, the quarterback he won Super Bowl XLV with, which is the kind of full-circle storyline that usually comes with a documentary crew attached.

Sunday is also the first game for offensive coordinator Brian Angelichio and defensive coordinator Patrick Graham. That last one is the thing I'm actually watching.

Back in January 2025, Julian Edelman went on his podcast, "Games with Names," with Matt Patricia and torched the Steelers defense for never changing. He said he always knew exactly what Pittsburgh was doing, that they still ran the same thing he faced years ago, and that he caught nine passes a game against it. Ben Roethlisberger, on his own show, said there was truth to it.

Now Tomlin is gone. So how different does this defense actually look?

Less different than you'd think — at least at the snap.

Graham has been open that he's keeping the 3-4 and keeping the language. "Whatever we can use that's the same, we'll go ahead and use the same," he said, crediting what Tomlin and the coaches before him built. McCarthy pledged the same when he took the job. With Cam Heyward, T.J. Watt and Jalen Ramsey all back, the personnel is largely unchanged too.

The change is supposed to live in the details — the disguise, the deployment, the blitz packages. Nick Herbig, asked what the wrinkles look like, grinned and said he couldn't give away all the sauce. Heyward's framing was more diplomatic: "You embrace the change. There are things that you want to say the same, but you have to be willing to put your ego aside and do what's best for the group."

There's a reason something had to give. Pittsburgh won the AFC North last season and still finished 26th in yards allowed, its worst mark in that category since 1988. The unit did force 29 takeaways, tied for third in the league, which is a polite way of saying it lived on splash plays. Sunday is the first data point on whether Graham has fixed the floor or just repainted the walls.

## The health report

The Steelers are close to a full deck. Safety DeShon Elliott and tackle Jack Driscoll are on injured reserve, and Joey Porter Jr. is the only name on the injury report, questionable after three straight limited practices with a back injury.

That injury has been widely read as leverage in a stalled contract negotiation, and Porter has not exactly waved that off. He declined to commit to playing Sunday, told reporters he isn't optimistic an extension gets done and said the "clock's ticking," while denying reports that he's angling to become the NFL's highest-paid corner. If he sits, Asante Samuel Jr. starts opposite Jamel Dean.

Atlanta's week was considerably worse.

Kevin Stefanski is making his own head coaching debut for the Falcons, and he'll do it with his third quarterback. Tua Tagovailoa was ruled out Friday with an oblique injury suffered in Thursday's practice. Michael Penix Jr. is still working back from last season's ACL tear. That leaves Cooper Rush, signed off the street in late July, with undrafted rookie Jack Strand behind him.

Rush is not a mystery to this building. He spent all five of McCarthy's Dallas seasons as his backup and went 9-5 as a starter there with 20 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He was also miserable in Baltimore last season: no touchdowns, four interceptions, 0-2 as a starter. Whatever surprise element Atlanta might have had, it's coaching the other sideline.

The Falcons pass rush is in worse shape than the quarterback room. Jalon Walker tore his ACL and is out for the season. James Pearce Jr., who led the team with 10.5 sacks as a rookie, is serving an eight-game suspension for violating the personal conduct policy. Za'Darius Smith, signed in August specifically to patch that hole, is questionable with a shoulder injury.

So: a backup quarterback, a first-time head coach, and no one to rush the passer, on the road, against a team that just spent eight months building toward this afternoon.

Every Steelers fan reading that last paragraph felt the same thing I did, which is dread.

This is the exact game the Steelers turn into a coin flip. Sloppy first quarter, a special teams gift, Rush completing eight straight off play-action while the crowd goes quiet, and suddenly it's a one-score game in the fourth and everyone's yelling about a new coach with the same old problems.

I still think they win. There's too much talent, too much pass rush and too little on the other side. But McCarthy's new-team openers have a history, and this team has a history, and those two histories rhyme.

**Steelers 23, Falcons 6.**