According to multiple media reporters, the Pittsburgh Steelers are set to name Mike McCarthy as their next head coach. Associated Press file photo

For the first time in generations, the Pittsburgh Steelers will not be plucking a relative unknown candidate to be their next head coach.

Instead, the franchise known for coaching stability has hired Mike McCarthy, the team confirmed Saturday evening.

The 62-year-old hails from the Pittsburgh region — McCarthy grew up in the Greenfield neighborhood, just a couple of miles away from the Steelers’ practice facility on the city's South Side — and has previously served as head coach of the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys.

He led the Packers to the title in Super Bowl 45 after the 2010 season with future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

McCarthy will replace Mike Tomlin, who stepped down after 19 seasons. McCarthy will be the second oldest head coach in the NFL behind Kansas City’s Andy Reid.

In Tomlin’s nearly two-decade tenure with the Steelers, he garnered 193 regular-season victories, tying Chuck Noll for the most by a Steelers coach in franchise history; led the team to a Super Bowl and never had a losing season. However, Pittsburgh has lost its last six postseason appearances.

McCarthy is 174-112-2 in his 18 years as head coach. His last stop was in Dallas, where he was fired after going 7-10 in the 2024 season.

The previous three Steelers head coaching hires since 1969 — Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Tomlin — were all in their mid-30s.

In the organization’s head coach search, the Steelers interviewed nearly a dozen candidates with a wide range of experience and skill sets. The list included Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores (who spent 2022 as a defensive assistant on Tomlin’s staff) and Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, who was hired by the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday to replace John Harbaugh.

McCarthy’s hire gives him a chance to burnish a resume that stalled a bit after guiding the Packers from a wild-card berth to the franchise's fifth Super Bowl in 2010.

McCarthy is just 6-9 in the playoffs since the confetti fell at AT&T Stadium. That includes a 1-2 mark with the Cowboys, where he posted three straight 12-win seasons from 2021-23 before being fired after Dallas tumbled to 7-10 in 2024 thanks in large part to an injury to quarterback Dak Prescott that limited him to just eight games.

The one thing McCarthy — who early in his career was a graduate assistant at the University of Pittsburgh (which now shares a building with the Steelers) — has consistently done is put together offenses that can move the ball.

McCarthy-coached teams have finished in the top 10 in yards in 12 of his 18 seasons, though his first years in both Green Bay in 2006 and Dallas in 2020 were sluggish.

The Steelers have been stuck in a transition period on offense for a solid half-decade. That transition may soon move to an expensive and aging defense that has potential Hall of Famers at every level (defensive tackle Cam Heyward, linebacker T.J. Watt and defensive back Jalen Ramsey), all in their 30s.

McCarthy would be the first Steelers hire with previous NFL head coaching experience since Mike Nixon in 1965. Nixon lasted just one season in Pittsburgh and was fired after going 2-12. Nixon was replaced by Bill Austin, who made it three years before Pittsburgh hired Noll, a decision that transformed the franchise from a laughingstock into one of the league's most successful and stable teams.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.