PITTSBURGH — Mike McCarthy is coming home.
The Pittsburgh Steelers announced Saturday they have reached a verbal agreement with McCarthy to replace Mike Tomlin as head coach.
McCarthy grew up in the Greenfield neighborhood, just a couple of miles away from the team’s practice facility on the city’s South Side.
The 62-year-old McCarthy is 185-123-2 (playoffs included) across 18 seasons as an NFL head coach. He spent his first 13 with the Green Bay Packers — who beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl to cap the 2010 season — and five with the Dallas Cowboys.
If the hire is completed, he will be just the fourth head coach for Steelers since 1969. Yet he will represent a marked departure from his predecessors: Tomlin, who led Pittsburgh from 2007 through this past season, and Pro Football Hall of Famers Bill Cowher (1992-2006) and Chuck Noll (1969-91).