Steelers Will Not Have Season-long Captains Under Mike Mccarthy

Sunday will mark the official start of a new era of Pittsburgh Steelers football as Mike McCarthy will make his regular season debut as the head coach of the team he grew up rooting for. It will be the first time since 2007 that a new man will be in charge of the Steelers for their season opener. With that will come a number of changes to the way the team handles business.

One of those things this season will be the way in which the team names captains. When asked about how the team would select captains in Monday’s press conference, McCarthy provided some details into the changes coming to that selection process this fall.

“We’ll do the weekly captain format,” McCarthy told the media. “So, without getting ahead of myself here, when we get to that point in that week I’ll get that information to you.”

Under former head coach Mike Tomlin, captains were named in the preseason and stayed the same throughout the duration of the season. Now, no single player will have the right to be a captain all season long.

This is not an entirely new concept for McCarthy, as he took a similar approach to naming weekly captains during his time as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. Now, he brings a fresh captain-choosing philosophy to his hometown.

Last season, Aaron Rodgers, Cam Heyward, and Miles Killebrew were named captains before the start of the season. After Killebrew suffered a season-ending injury, it was linebacker Payton Wilson who took over as the special teams captain.

It would not be surprising to see veterans like Rodgers and Heyward earn the weekly captain title several times throughout the season, but now younger players will be incentivized for their efforts by potentially earning the title of weekly captain.

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