Steelers president Art Rooney II reacts to negative feedback surrounding hiring Mike McCarthy as next head coach

Over the weekend, Pittsburgh Steelers team president Art Rooney II insisted that new head coach Mike McCarthy will "help lead us to a championship." 

Nevertheless, such comments didn't stop pockets of Steelers fans and local media members from criticizing the Steelers for going with a head coach who hasn't had a ton of playoff success in recent years. 

For a piece published on Monday, Rooney spoke with Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and addressed the negative reactions surrounding McCarthy's hiring that are hovering over the Steelers this winter. 

Art Rooney II, Steelers "can't worry about" reactions to Mike McCarthy hiring

"The great thing about sports is everybody has their opinion," Rooney explained. "It is what it is. You know, you can't worry about social media. You’ve got to make the best decision you can make. At the end of the day, if we win games, none of that is going to matter." 

Like former Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin, who stepped down from the role after 19 seasons, McCarthy has proven he can guide a club to a Super Bowl championship. That said, Tomlin lost members of the Pittsburgh fan base due to the fact that he dropped the last seven postseason games of his tenure and last won a playoff contest in January 2017. To compare, McCarthy went 1-3 in postseason play with the Dallas Cowboys from 2020 through the 2024 season. 

Art Rooney II gives Aaron Rodgers update after hiring of Mike McCarthy 

McCarthy was Aaron Rodgers' head coach when the two were with the Green Bay Packers for over a decade. Previous stories suggested Rodgers will ultimately retire this offseason, but some have wondered if McCarthy could convince the 42-year-old to spend another campaign as Pittsburgh's starting quarterback and as a mentor for 2025 sixth-round draft choice Will Howard.

"There were questions about Aaron and what he was going to do, and we just said, 'Look, we don’t know what Aaron's going to do, so you can't factor that into this,'" Rooney said about conversations that took place involving coaching candidates. "So the discussion really was about we have a young quarterback on the roster that people like the upside, and whether it's sooner or later, I think people are looking forward to working with them." 

At this point, it sounds like Rooney and McCarthy legitimately don't know what Rodgers plans to do following his forgettable outing in Pittsburgh's 30-6 wild-card playoff loss to the Houston Texans on Jan. 12. It's unknown if McCarthy has a timeline in mind for when a Rodgers-related decision would need to be made regarding the 2026 season.