The Pittsburgh Steelers have finalized their 2026 coaching staff under new head coach Mike McCarthy. The staff is the largest in franchise history, marking a sharp contrast from the later years of Mike Tomlin’s tenure.
The question now: does a bigger staff translate into better results?
Before digging into who is who and what this means, let’s take a look at the complete list of Mike McCarthy’s assistants.
Art Rooney II and Omar Khan bookend Mike McCarthy. Photo Credit: Chaz Palla, Tribune-Review
Pittsburgh Steelers 2026 Offensive Coaching Staff
Head Coach: Mike McCarthy
Offensive Coordinator: Brian Angelichio
Quarterbacks: Tom Arth
Game Management/Quarterbacks: Tim Berbenich
Offensive Line: James Campen
Assistant Offensive Line: Jahri Evans
Running Backs: Ramon Chinyoung Sr.
Wide Receivers: Adam Henry
Tight Ends: Robert Kugler
Senior Offensive Assistant: Frank Cignetti Jr.
Offensive Quality Control: Eric Simonelli
Pittsburgh Steelers 2026 Defensive Coaching Staff
Defensive Coordinator: Patrick Graham
Assistant Head Coach/Secondary: Joe Whitt Jr.
Defensive Pass-Game Coordinator/Defensive Backs: Jason Simmons
Defensive Line: Domata Peko
Outside Linebackers: C.J. Ah You
Inside Linebackers: Scott McCurley
Defensive Assistant: Shawn Howe
Defensive Assistant: Pat Reilly
Steelers 2026 Special Teams Coaching Staff
Special Teams Coordinator: Danny Crossman
Senior Special Teams Assistant: Derius Swinton II
Steelers 2026 Strength and Conditioning Staff
Head Strength & Conditioning: Mark Lovat
Director of Performance Integration/Sports Science: Grant Thorne
Strength and Conditioning Assistant: Justus Galac
Strength and Conditioning Assistant: Abe Munayer
Chief of Staff: Steve Scarnecchia
Familiar Faces
Inside linebackers coach Scott McCurley and quarterbacks coach Tom Arth return from Mike Tomlin’s staff. Jason Simmons returns to Pittsburgh after having played for the Steelers from 1998 through to the 2001 season.
Tight Ends coach Robert Kugler is the son of former Steelers offensive line coach Sean Kugler. The younger Kugler played high school football for North Allegheny High School.
No other coaches have direct ties to the Steelers, but many have ties to Pittsburgh – and nearly all of them have ties to McCarthy. Brian Angelichio coached at Pitt from 2006 to 2010. Frank Cignetti coached at both Pitt and IUP working as offensive coordinator. Tim Berbenich doesn’t have ties to Pittsburgh, but he did work in New York under former Pitt head coach Paul Hackett.
Bill Bigger = Better?
The most interesting choice is perhaps Brian Angelichio, who has ties to the Shanahan-McVay coaching tree that is in vogue in the NFL today the way the Bill Walsh tree was in the 1990s.
Brian Angelichio won’t be calling plays but would figure to have a lot of input on the game planning. Still, it is fair to question what his impact will be.
ON the defensive side, Patrick Graham is seen in the league as a bright defensive mind who has gotten a lot of mileage out of the talent he’s had available to him.
As for the rest of the staff, I won’t speculate as I am not familiar with them.
- The larger staff size is what’s drawing the most attention.
During the later part of the Mike Tomlin’s 19 year tenure as Steelers head coach, Pittsburgh had one of the NFL’s smaller staffs. The rumor always was that Art Rooney II limited the budget Tomlin had to work with. Others have speculated that this was Mike Tomlin’s choice.
The only hard information we have is that the Steelers almost always let assistants coach out their contracts as opposed to letting them go. That would suggest it was a budget issue. But that’s still speculation.
The Steelers Brain Trust @ St. Vincents. Photo Credit:Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports, via Yahoo! Sports
The truth is the only people who know are probably Tomlin, Rooney, Kevin Colbert and Omar Khan. (And unlike Joey Porter, Sr. I don’t expect to see any of them discussing this on podcasts anytime soon.) One of the things we do know is that Mike Tomlin’s track record when it came to selecting assistant coaches was not one of his strengths.
Mike McCarthy has added some quantity to the Steelers coaching staff, now it is time to see if that translates into quality.
- That’s a possibly but far from a certainty.
When Joe Gibbs returned to Washington for his second stint, he assembled what looked to be a true dream team of a coaching staff. But this scribe wondered from afar, “Will this be the case of too many chefs?”
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, but Gibbs had a respectable run but couldn’t return the franchise to its former glory. And truth be told, looking at his org chart that included an Offensive Coordinator and Assistant Head Coach Offense AND an “Associate Head Coach Offense” I couldn’t help but think of Mrs. Bowen’s Home Ec class at Parkland Junior High (yes we still had Jr. High then) where our kitchen staffs consisted of, “The Cook,” “The Assistant Cook,” “The KP,” the “Dishwasher,” “The Dish Dryer” and if we had uneven numbers…. wait for it, “The Helper to the Assistant Cook.”
Never did quite figure out what “The Helper to the Assistant Cook” was supposed to do. But damn, we made some mean peanut butter cookies back in the day.
Hopefully, McCarthy’s “Chief of Staff” Steve Scarnecchia can his team do the NFL equivalent.
Overhire, individual capabilities will manifest, consolidate to optimize. In other words, dont be surprised if some leave and remaining pick up slack-just maybe not in that order.