The Pittsburgh Steelers have reached an agreement to hire Mike McCarthy as their next coach, the team announced. McCarthy is set to succeed Mike Tomlin while becoming only the team's fourth head coach since Chuck Noll was hired way back in 1969. A Pittsburgh native, the 62-year-old McCarthy took the 2025 season off after spending the previous five seasons as the Dallas Cowboys' coach.
The Brian Schottenheimer era kicked off in 2025, and although it didn't end how we would have wanted to, the future looks bright. Dallas took an unorthodox (for them) approach to fill the offensive coordinator position, and it paid off well. Usually known to hire ex-head coaches as coordinators, the Cowboys instead hired Arizona Cardinals OL Coach Klayton Adams as offensive coordinator, and the results were more than pleasant.
Toia's rookie season in Dallas was almost entirely a redshirt year. He appeared in only five games, recording one solo tackle and two assists, with no sacks, no forced fumbles and no other stats on the box score. PFF graded him at 29.9 overall on those limited snaps and explicitly tagged him as having not enough snaps, which tells you both how little he played and how little weight you should put on the grade at this stage.
The most likely aspect that'll come over for Parker from a schematic standpoint is the two-high safety look. It's a versatile approach that doesn't tip the secondary's plan pre-snap and forces the QB to make post-snap reads as defenders can rotate into all sorts of different coverage looks after the snap in both man and zone. From a coverage standpoint, their most utilized coverage was Cover 3 over the two years Parker coached the Eagles (32.1% on average).
For Diggs, an offseason dispute over another rehab away from The Star was just the first step in what was to become a messy divorce. The Micah Parsons trade seemed to be the last straw, even though Diggs would play in eight games for the Cowboys, with six starts. He would finish with 25 tackles in those eight games. But he wouldn't record a single interception. He was finally released late in the year.
In 2025, the Dallas Cowboys made a move in free agency and swung for the fences with two trades to shore up their linebacker room. They couldn't have gotten it any more wrong if they tried. Jack Sanborn was brought in from Chicago along with former Bears head coach Matt Eberflus. Both linebacker and defensive coordinator flopped badly. The Cowboys traded with the Los Angeles Chargers for linebacker Kenneth Murray.
The Dallas Cowboys finished 12th in the 2025 NFC and will clearly be aiming for improvement next season. Having strung together three wins in November, things were looking up for the Cowboys, but they suffered a poor run at the end of the season, losing four of their last five games. What can the Cowboys do in 2026 free agency? Cowboys 2026 Salary Cap The Cowboys are known for being one of the more conscious teams when it comes to their salary cap.
Kamara production didn't come out of nowhere one season. He has been consistent at both of the stops in his college football career. As a redshirt sophomore at James Madison in 2023, he put together a season where he had 53 total tackles, 18.5 tackles for a loss, and 7.5 sacks, while forcing four fumbles along the way. He was a defender living in the backfield. After that season, he followed head coach Curt Cignetti to Indiana through the transfer portal. Even then, nobody was rushing to get him. He entered the portal ranked 997th and 99th among defensive lineman.
Entering the offseason, the Dallas Cowboys have a lot of holes to address. While the defense stood out as the team's most glaring concern, the offense still has some under-the-radar areas to supplement. After some blockbuster trades this past season, the Cowboys have six draft picks currently, and possibly some compensatory picks. That said, Dallas will have limited ammunition to fill needs. Looking at where the Cowboys stand, here are the five most important positions for Dallas to set their sights on.
They are worth an absurd amount of money. We can save discussions for how the Cowboys can still afford (no pun intended) to be more active in free agency for another day, but on this one we are talking about how they currently have an opportunity to weaponize their value, both their financial one and the subsequent opportunities that are born from being associated with them.
The Jets' defensive coordinator search has flown under the radar during a frenzied HC carousel, but it has taken shape Friday. The team announced eight candidates for the job. In addition to interim DC Chris Harris, seven others received interviews. Don Martindale (Michigan), Jim Leonhard (Broncos), Ephraim Banda (Browns), Jim O'Neil (Lions), DeMarcus Covington (Packers), Daronte Jones (Vikings) and Mathieu Araujo (Dolphins) interviewed for the position.
The NFL coaching carousel is in full swing, and for the Dallas Cowboys that means an ongoing search for their newest defensive coordinator. Other teams within the NFC East are actively looking for new coordinators as well, but only the New York Giants were in on the head coaching hiring cycle, landing what many considered the biggest fish on the market in John Harbaugh.
The AFC North is notorious for its high level of competition. Until this year, which saw both the Browns and Bengals fall victim to losing seasons, the division had a three-year streak with three out of four teams having a winning record. Joe Burrow's arrival in Cincinnati, Lamar Jackson's dominance in Baltimore, and Mike Tomlin's consistency in Pittsburgh have given the AFC North one heck of a run in the 2020s.
Although the Dallas Cowboys' season was cut short due to a disappointing 7-9-1 record, the offense still thrived. Two of their new additions, Javonte Williams and George Pickens, produced in their first season with the Dallas Cowboys, with the latter being named a second-team All-Pro. Coincidentally, both players did it just at the right time and are set for new contracts at the beginning of the new league year.
