The Pittsburgh Steelers look a whole lot different in 2026 compared to 2025. After nearly two decades under Mike Tomlin, plenty of change is already occurring with Mike McCarthy leading the franchise.
“You don’t see benches out here anymore,” veteran outside linebacker T.J. Watt said Wednesday via Post-Gazette Steelers on YouTube. “We’re doing things much different than what I’m used to over the last nine years. And it’s good. Change is good, for me.”
For someone like Watt, who spent his entire career under Tomlin, it certainly may feel like a shock with a new coach leading the team. In the Steelers’ case, change certainly may end up being a good thing.
While Tomlin was clearly a very good head coach, sometimes things can get stale when the same voice is in the same building for so long. It seems some of the changes McCarthy is making, like removing benches as Watt notes, are refreshing to parts of the locker room.
Watt isn’t the only one noting some differences between the previous and current Steelers head coach. Gerry Dulac mentioned recently that McCarthy has come in “full speed ahead”, and that practices are moving at a “frenetic pace.” Ray Fittipaldo also credited the coaches through the first part of OTAs, appreciating that they “know that they’re doing”.
For a lot of reasons, the coaching staff has to be working at such a quick pace. Aside from a couple of holdovers, it’s an entirely new staff. McCarthy is installing a new offense, and Patrick Graham is trying to work his own things out defensively.
At the position level, almost every group has a new coach leading his own unit. Nick Herbig echoed a similar sentiment to Watt on Tuesday, appreciating some of the work C.J. Ah You is doing with the edge group, and noting that change “isn’t always bad”.
When a new coaching staff comes into town, most of the attention goes toward major things, like roster or schematic changes. But there will be plenty of smaller change across smaller changes as well. Small things like removing benches in practice or different practice routines are some good examples.
For a Steelers team that was led by Tomlin for so long, those changes could have a greater impact. To Watt, some of that change instituted by McCarthy is welcome so far.
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