Madden Monday: Art Rooney II ‘wasted a decade,’ so expect the Steelers to ‘hire the wrong guy’

Conventional thinking is that the Pittsburgh Steelers will attempt to hire a head coach who is in his mid-30s, has never held an NFL coaching job and is a current defensive coordinator.

Their previous three coaches — Chuck Noll, Bill Cowher and Mike Tomlin — all won Super Bowls. They all had resumes that fit such a description.

However, given the news that the franchise may attempt to speak with former Green Bay Packers coach Mike McCarthy, Mark Madden of TribLive and 105.9 The X thinks a different agenda may be afoot: Keeping the organization’s non-losing season streak alive.

Even though that mark is always associated with Tomlin’s career, it actually extends back three years before he was hired. Madden believes Rooney wants that point underscored and advanced into Year 1 of Tomlin’s successor.

“Rooney appears to have taken ownership of that streak now that Tomlin is gone,” Madden said during this week’s “Madden Monday” podcast. “The current ownership and management don’t know what they’re doing. I know they’re going to hire the wrong guy because that’s what they do. They do the wrong thing.”

It’s Madden’s belief that the Steelers are still prioritizing being borderline competitive on a yearly basis as opposed to a potential long-term rebuild that may be needed to eventually cultivate a true Super Bowl contender down the line.

“Art just wants to win a playoff game,” Madden said. “That stuff he said in his press conference about how you don’t want to waste a year? They’ve wasted a decade. He defines ‘waste’ differently than me. He probably defines ‘contending’ differently than me. But, in my mind, they’ve wasted a decade. And he’s fretting about potentially wasting a year?”

Theoretically, hiring McCarthy and perhaps retaining Aaron Rodgers as well would go a long way toward at least securing 9-8, but may do nothing when it comes to building a long-term title contender.

“This team is nowhere close to winning anything significant — (not) one playoff game, let alone a series of them. But they’re really desperate to get a playoff win,” Madden said. “To be all in for a playoff win, they did that this year. But it didn’t work. That’s what they’re desperate to do. And hiring McCarthy and retaining Rodgers would indeed be desperate, but I would not put it past the Steelers to do just that.”

Also during the podcast, Madden and I talk about various reasons why Mike Tomlin may have resigned, the NFL playoff games over the weekend and the Penguins’ latest shootout defeat.