When prospects meet with teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers at the NFL Scouting Combine, they never know quite what they’ll see. We’ve heard of crazy interview questions. However, it’s quite common for coaches like Mike McCarthy to get prospects like Penn State QB Drew Allar and Miami QB Carson Beck on the whiteboard to demonstrate football knowledge.
Steelers fans have heard for years just how prospects thought of meeting with former head coach Mike Tomlin in these meetings. But what about McCarthy? Do the draft prospects enjoy sitting down and talking football with him? For Allar, McCarthy was actually the toughest coach he dealt with in terms of the questions.
“I would say Coach McCarthy with the Steelers, but we weren’t necessarily on the board when we did it,” Allar said Friday when talking with CBS Sports’ Aditi Kinkhabwala. “It was just kind of like this, and I was explaining a lot about our protections in a couple of concepts he was asking me about. It was really fun, though. Those are the conversations I love. I love talking ball, I’m learning as much as I can.”
Which coach has been the toughest when they put Drew Allar on the board?
Mike McCarthy, as @AKinkhabwala found out pic.twitter.com/p8SxpDZYml
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) February 27, 2026
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that an offensive coach like Mike McCarthy would grill a quarterback prospect. If a head coach is going to tie his career to a quarterback, he’s going to be darn sure that prospect has a great mental understanding. We’ve seen plenty of physically gifted quarterbacks fail in the NFL, time and time again. The quarterbacks who have a good mental grasp of the game tend to have long careers, even if they aren’t physically elite.
Although McCarthy may have been tough in the meeting, from Allar’s perspective, it was a fun conversation. If a prospect loves talking football, they will welcome a chance to have deep conversations, even if it’s about line protections rather than your favorite passing concept. It sounded like both sides enjoyed getting into the nitty-gritty of offensive football inside that meeting room.
Allar wasn’t the only quarterback who Mike McCarthy left a quality impression on, either. Carson Beck also had a formal sit-down meeting with McCarthy and the Steelers at the Combine. For him, sitting down with McCarthy was “super cool.”
“I thought the interview went well,” Beck said, per Mary Kay Cabot of Pro Football Writers of America. “Again, it’s hard to read. Sometimes they’re all professionals there, but again, talking to coach McCarthy, it was honestly really cool. Obviously, he’s had an amazing career as a coach, and just talking to him, you can tell how smart he is just from a football side and a football standpoint. So it was a really cool opportunity, obviously all of these meetings, but that one for sure was really, really cool.”
It sounds like Beck’s experience with McCarthy may have been a bit more laid back than Allar’s. However, both quarterbacks came away impressed and having enjoyed the time together.
We’ve heard for years about how much players respected Tomlin and wanted to play for him. Now, we’re seeing young quarterbacks coming up through the draft who have a lot of admiration for Mike McCarthy’s football knowledge and coaching career. That’s got to be reassuring for Steelers fans wondering just how McCarthy will be with players.
Will either Drew Allar or Carson Beck get a chance to play for Mike McCarthy in Pittsburgh? Who knows. However, both of them came away from their meetings with the Steelers having a strong impression of the team’s new head coach.
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