When the Pittsburgh Steelers began their head coach search, many of their fans hoped for some significant change moving forward. But the hiring of Mike McCarthy hasn’t been enough of a change for some of those fans.

Even though he’s on the offensive side of the ball, it appears the Steelers will still run a similar scheme defensively. Speaking at his introductory press conference a week ago, McCarthy said that he will continue rolling with the 3-4 defense the Steelers have had for years. To analyst Gregg Rosenthal, it’s a questionable decision.

“I thought it was telling that Art Rooney [II] and Mike McCarthy said how it was important for them to maintain the Steeler way. Which is a 3-4 defense. They literally were saying, like, ‘We want to run the same defense. It’s been effective for so long, why do we want to change that?’ And I’m thinking, that was the most expensive defense in the league, and it wasn’t effective this year. But Patrick Graham can run that system,” Rosenthal said recently on his NFL Daily podcast.

McCarthy has hired Graham as his defensive coordinator. Graham hasn’t exclusively run the 3-4 defense, but he does have some experience with it. For most of his career as a defensive coordinator, he’s had to make things work without much talent. That’s made him flexible in many areas, including pre-snap alignments like a 3-4.

The Steelers have built their defense with the 3-4 in mind. So it does make some sense that McCarthy would want to stick to it. It could also signal that there might not be as much turnover on the defensive side of the ball as some expect. But it is worth mentioning that the difference between running a 3-4 and a 4-3 means less in today’s NFL, with defenses often forced into nickel packages.

Things may be different in Pittsburgh, and we do have some idea of the defenses Graham likes to run. In 2025 in Las Vegas, Graham ran a boatload of Cover 3. The Raiders were in that coverage for nearly half their 2025 defensive snaps, according to Football Insights on X.

Some will cringe at the idea of the Steelers refusing to change things up. But McCarthy keeping the 3-4 defense is far from the worst thing in the world. With the Steelers’ defensive talent, especially at edge rusher, it makes some sense. And Graham has experience running it too, doing well with limited talent in his past. Graham will also have more talent in Pittsburgh than he’s familiar with. So there should be some more optimism around the Steelers’ defense in 2026.