Matt Ryan, as the Falcons’ president of football, will oversee all aspects of football for the organization. The team, though, still intends to hire a General Manager.
With Ryan as the primary decision-maker for the Falcons, teams are allowed to block interview requests from the Falcons for the G.M. job. The Steelers apparently won’t, though.
Mark Kaboly of The Pat McAfee Show reports that Steelers assistant General Manager Andy Weidl will interview for the Falcons’ General Manager job.
Weidl joined the Steelers after the draft in 2022.
He also has worked for the Saints, Ravens and Eagles.
Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores has wrapped up his interview with the Steelers.
The Steelers announced the completion of the interview on Tuesday afternoon. It was the first in-person interview they have conducted during their search to find Mike Tomlin’s successor.
Flores shares a defensive pedigree with the last three Steelers head coaches, but differs from Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Tomlin because he has been a head coach in the past. Flores went 24-25 in three seasons for the Dolphins before being fired after the 2021 season.
Flores has also interviewed for the Ravens’ head coaching job and he’s met with the Commanders about their defensive coordinator vacancy. His contract in Minnesota is expiring, but Vikings reportedly hope to have him back if he doesn’t become a head coach.
The Steelers are set to interview former Cowboys and Packers head coach Mike McCarthy on Wednesday. Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver is expected to have an in-person interview as well.
With each coaching hire that the Steelers nail — and they’re three-for-three since 1969 — the pressure builds to get the next one right, too.
So here they are, 19 years after their last search. With plenty of good options from which to choose.
The problem with having a bunch of quality candidates is that, eventually, a choice needs to be made. So who will they choose?
For now, the candidates are: Rams pass game coordinator Nate Scheelhaase, Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula, Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores, Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver, Panthers defensive coordinator Ejiro Evero, 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak, Chargers defensive coordinator Jesse Minter, and former Cowboys and Packers head coach Mike McCarthy.
As to the franchise’s three most recent coaches, dating back to the first term of the Nixon administration, each one (Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher, Mike Tomlin) was a defensive coordinator with no previous head-coaching experience. That formula, if followed again, would point to the likes of Shula, Weaver, Evero, and Minter.
But here’s the basic reality. Since hiring Tomlin in 2007, the game has changed. It has skewed more and more toward offense, with the post-2009 emphasis on player safety making it harder to play old-school, hard-nosed, Steel Curtain defense.
When the NFL started aggressively flagging and fining players for illegal hits on defenseless receivers, there was a disconnect between the league’s application of the rules and the manner in which Tomlin was coaching them. Eventually, the league put Tomlin on the Competition Committee in part to get him to buy in to the new way of playing the game.
As of 2026, it’s impossible for the Steelers to ignore the evolution of the game. And, frankly, their offense has been sluggish at best in the years after the retirement of Ben Roethlisberger. If the Steelers intend to never be in position to draft a franchise quarterback, they’ll need to find and develop one another way, either by hitting on a lower draft pick or getting more out of a veteran than he has done elsewhere. Having an offensive mastermind as the team’s head coach will help.
Then there’s the question of whether they want another coach who’ll stick around for 15 years or longer. The availability of Pittsburgh native Mike McCarthy is intriguing, but he’s 62. Noll (23 seasons), Cowher (15), and Tomlin (19) were each in their 30s when hired.
At first blush, Shula feels like a perfect fit, given that his grandfather, Don, recommended Noll for the job. Only 15 days after Don Shula and Noll worked together in Super Bowl III (which their Colts lost to the Jets), Noll was hired by the Steelers.
But perfection is revealed after the fact. With a coach who isn’t fired because he performs well enough to not be. Plenty of first-time coaches fail, largely because the coordinator and head-coach skillsets are very different.
Wherever it goes, the weight of hiring three straight Super Bowl winners is palpable. And if it’s obvious from the outside, it’s inescapable on the inside.
The Buccaneers have found a new special teams coordinator.
Per NFL Media, veteran coach Danny Smith is joining Tampa Bay in the role.
Smith, 72, had been with the Steelers as the club’s special teams coordinator since 2013. But with Mike Tomlin stepping down as head coach, Pittsburgh gave its assistants permission to find roles elsewhere.
Smith has been serving as a special teams coordinator since 1995 when the Eagles hired him in the role. While he was Detroit’s tight ends coach from 1999-2000, he has since served as special teams coordinator for Buffalo (2001-2003), Washington (2004-2012), and Pittsburgh.
Smith replaces Thomas McGaughe, who was fired after spending 2024-2025 with the club.
Curt Cignetti has come a long way, in a short time.
In only two years of big-time college football — at a previously small-time Big Ten program — Cignetti has climbed to the top of the mountain. The question now becomes whether he’ll try to climb the same mountain again, or whether he’ll look for a new mountain.
Cignetti has recently said he’s “not an NFL guy.” There’s nothing like a giant bag of cash to change a guy’s mind, however.
The first question is whether one of the six NFL teams currently looking for a head coach will make the call.
If it doesn’t happen now, it never will. Cignetti is 64. He has no NFL experience. But what he has done in such a short time at Indiana can’t be ignored.
Owners are looking for quick fixes. Has there ever been a quicker fix than what Cignetti did in Bloomington?
It won’t be cheap, either to buy out his contract ($15 million) or to hire him. He’s in line to get upward of $13 million per year in a place where he’ll likely be able to stay as long as he wants. Although it’s far from easy to keep winning national championships, the money is there to be consistently competitive (thanks in part to alumni like Mark Cuban).
Regardless, Cignetti has proven himself time and again. From IUP to Elon to James Madison to Indiana, the former West Virginia quarterback, whose father (Frank Cignetti Sr.) bridged the gap in Morgantown between Bobby Bowden and Don Nehlen, has seen his ship come in. Will an NFL owner now sidle up with a superyacht?
If an NFL team looking for a coach believes Cignetti could be the answer, and if the owner is willing to write the check to make it happen, why not make the call? Plenty of teams could do a lot worse.
Plenty of teams have. And history tells us that, in the current cycle, plenty of teams will.
