{"id":869416,"date":"2026-06-15T18:55:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:55:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/869416\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T18:55:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:55:16","slug":"dulac-predicts-biggest-change-between-tomlin-mccarthy-on-gameday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/869416\/","title":{"rendered":"Dulac Predicts \u2018Biggest Change\u2019 Between Tomlin, McCarthy On Gameday"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lot has already been made about the different ways Mike McCarthy conducts offseason practices<\/a> for the Pittsburgh Steelers compared to the way Mike Tomlin did for years. The big question is how might those changes carry over and reflect on game day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the biggest thing we\u2019re going to find out is how the offense is going to run,\u201d the P-G\u2019s Gerry Dulac said via 102.5 WDVE\u2019s Morning Show with Randy Baumann<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t care who the coordinator was before, at least since Bruce Arians, and that is that offense ran the way Mike Tomlin wanted that offense to run. And it was a very conservative attack for the most part.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Tomlin often talked about the way he wanted to \u201cengineer victory.\u201d What that looked like in practice was a bend-but-don\u2019t-break defense that tried to limit explosive plays, and a conservative offense that focused on controlling the clock and not turning the ball over.<\/p>\n

Offensively, it was hard to watch. Pittsburgh avoided the middle of the field like the plague, and always reverted to the same run or screen-pass plays that everybody could see coming from a mile away.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of the reasons why Pittsburgh had three different offensive coordinators\u2014Randy Fichtner, Matt Canada, and Arthur Smith\u2014but roughly the same offensive identity for most of the last decade. Tomlin was the common denominator as he desperately tried to limit the negative impact of an offense that lagged significantly behind in talent.<\/p>\n

The talent is in a much better spot now. But more importantly, the Steelers have a head coach who sees things differently. In 18 years of being a head coach, McCarthy has fielded 12 top-10 scoring offenses and 11 in the overall yards category. Tomlin had just six top-10 finishes in each over his 19 years with the team.<\/p>\n

That contrast gets ever uglier if you look at top-5 finishes.<\/p>\n

Some of it obviously depends on Aaron Rodgers and how much he\u2019s willing to hang onto the ball. Last year, the Steelers worked to protect him, which translated to the quickest time to throw and the shortest average air yards per attempt in the league. It won\u2019t be back to Aaron Rodgers of old, but I think we can reasonably expect an entirely different texture to the offense under McCarthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the time, Mike Tomlin\u2019s philosophy usually was rooted in don\u2019t try to go win the game, just try not to lose it,\u201d Dulac said. \u201cI don\u2019t think Mike McCarthy, as an offensive-minded coach, has that same mentality. He runs the offense the way he sees fit. He calls the plays. And that\u2019s gonna be the biggest difference between Mike Tomlin and the coordinators he had and the way Mike McCarthy is gonna run the offense and call the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between the growth of the offensive line, the continuity of having Aaron Rodgers for another year, and the additions of Michael Pittman Jr., Rico Dowdle, and Germie Bernard, it\u2019s okay to have high expectations for the Steelers\u2019 2026 offense under McCarthy.<\/p>\n

For the first time in a long time, the Steelers appear positioned to pair offensive talent with a head coach whose instincts lean toward attacking rather than merely managing the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lot has already been made about the different ways Mike McCarthy conducts offseason practices for the Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":853583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[39],"tags":[76835,353921,24895,139638,17666,1232,353922,62,939,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-869416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-102-5-wdve","tag-dve-morning-show","tag-gerry-dulac","tag-mike-mccarthy","tag-mike-tomlin","tag-nfl","tag-randy-baumann","tag-sports","tag-trending","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116755649562732357","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}