The Pomp And Joe Show
Frank Michael Smith loves the Mike McCarthy hire to develop a young QB
29 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
New music, Joe. Do you like it? It's upgraded. I do. We need to get some Bruno Mars in the rotation.
Got a real nice beat to it, doesn't it?
A little 24-karat magic to introduce our next guest. Who is this, Limits?
This is music that Craig has put into the system.
Every show gets different music?
It doesn't say which by.
I like genre. We could get a little rap in here if you want to. I'm playing what I'm told at the moment.
That's above my pay grade, Bob.
All right. Let's get to, I'm looking up some Frank Michael Smith tweets here.
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Chapter 2: Why does Frank Michael Smith support the Mike McCarthy hire?
He looks a hell of a lot better than me, I'll tell you that. How are you doing, guys? Good to be back on. Good to have you back on.
So you're bullish on his hire?
Yeah, very. I'm super bullish on it. The tweet sums it up right there, but last time I was on, I talked about an offensive coach. That's my one thing on the wish list, and I got it. I don't want to be picky. A lot of guys wanted Sheilhaus or maybe a different offensive guy. I know a lot of people wanted Shula too, but for me, it's all about the offense, and that's what McCarthy brings.
Everything else is the cherry on top.
Well, that's what he brought when he already had Rodgers and he walked into Prescott. And I'm not questioning his offensive credentials necessarily, but who's the quarterback going to be? Who's he walking into here or who is he going to have, Frank? That's my question here.
Well, I want to push back on that Rodgers thing real quick here. He didn't walk into Pro Bowl Aaron Rodgers. He walked onto that team, and Rodgers had never started a game. So Rodgers wasn't the quarterback that everyone sees today. He had this weird kind of robotic, high-release quarterback They worked together on that. He put them through what he called quarterback school.
You know, this is like, this is how he got the job in Pittsburgh pretty much as he went to the Rooney's and said, look, here's my long experience of developing quarterbacks. I did it, you know, the best case studies here in Rogers. Let me do that here in Pittsburgh. So I think he has to get credit.
I'll give him credit, but is there an Aaron Rodgers-like talent? I mean, you can talk about his release point, whatever. He's one of the most naturally gifted quarterbacks who ever walked the planet. It would have taken something to screw that up. Where's the next guy here? Who's he developing?
If he was that naturally gifted, he would have gone first overall over Alex Smith. He wasn't the guy we see today. That took a lot of hard work. I think it's both. I think it's a combination. But there is no guy in Pittsburgh right now.
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Chapter 3: What credit does Frank give McCarthy for developing quarterbacks?
Maybe it's Will Howard. I really hope we don't run it back with Rodgers. I know they left the door open to do that, but you got to keep swinging, right? You got to keep drafting these guys and trying. We did it one time with Kenny Pickett. Didn't work out. You got to go back to the dish and try again.
So who would you, if you had an opportunity, because I don't think first round is available. Regardless, we'll talk Rodgers in a second more. But if you had a chance to draft a quarterback, let's say second, third, fourth rounds, and if you think they have potential, which one of these guys that are available to be drafted would you take, Frank?
You know, there's none that I really like this year. I want to see what we have with Will Howard. Everyone speaks very highly of him. If there's someone on the Steelers radar that you like as a second or third day guy, great. Let's try it out. But I feel like we have a guy in the roster right now that is waiting there, ready for a chance. Let's do that. What do you like about him?
First of all, he's a big guy. This is who succeeds in the AFC North. You need a big quarterback, a guy who's mobile now. I think his athleticism is skipped over. He's not like some dynamic athlete like Lamar Jackson or any of these top runners right now, but he can do it. He can do a little bit.
He's not gonna be a statue back there like a Kirk Cousins that might be rumored to come in as a veteran or something like that. He gives you a little bit of room to run. He's a leader. You know, he's won a national championship. I know a lot of people don't want to hear that. Oh, you know, winning is not a quarterback stat. It means something.
The guy won a national championship and everyone speaks very highly of him. He seems like he's well liked in the building. Maybe he's not good, you know, but it's like you drafted him for a reason. Let's go out and see what we got.
Our friend and your friend, the limitless wonder here, gave the McCarthy hiring an F and has upgraded that to an F plus, Frank. I present City Limits.
Yeah, Frank, the reason why that is, is I wanted this to be more of a fresh start. Whether it be a younger offensive mind, which is what I was more in favor of. But especially, I kind of doubled down on this after hearing McCarthy at the press conference.
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Chapter 4: What concerns does Joe raise about the McCarthy hire?
It seems like they're going to run it back with Rodgers. He thinks the defense is fine and there's a lot of great pieces. I just don't think that the Steelers are looking at this as if it's more of a rebuild than it actually is, and that Art and Omar heard a lot of things that they wanted to hear from McCarthy, and that's partly why he's the guy. So what about McCarthy's offense don't you like?
Well, I just thought go younger, go more innovative. I'm okay with McCarthy the coach. I just think that the process that they went through was poor, and I also thought that having a younger guy to be able to develop a younger quarterback and sustain something for a while would have been better because I think that McCarthy is more of a Tomlin 2.0 type of guy in this role.
Well, I don't think that's fair. This guy led three straight top five offenses in Dallas. One of them, as I said in my video, was fourth, and Cooper Rush started six of those games, five or six of those games. So he can do it, and he calls the plays too. Just because he's not 30 years old doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's doing on offense. The stats back it up.
So I really got nothing for you there.
What about ā and this was my only thing about this hire, Frank, is that when they made it and I knew that Mike McCarthy didn't have a whole bunch of people following him trying to get him to be hired, you could have had the same thought but then continued the interview process, which I thought was going to happen. I mean, logically. Just you had ā Shuley had Chilaus.
Whether or not they liked him or didn't like him on a Zoom interview, I still thought they were going to bring him in. I also thought they were going to bring in Clint Kubiak, who's had a really good ā start to his career.
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Chapter 5: How did McCarthy's past success influence his hiring?
So were you disappointed they didn't do that? Or do you think, I mean, they just were, you know, he's represented everything they wanted. And so they just decided to take him.
You know, I got to say I'm a bit surprised. I'll put it like that. I'm not disappointed because they felt like they got, you know, their man and, you know, he passed all their tests with flying colors apparently and they gave him a big five-year deal. But I was definitely surprised that they didn't wait to at least see some of these guys in person.
Because after all, that's how Tomlin got to be where he was because he came in really as an underdog candidate, but he went in there and took over the room. Agreed. Surprised, not disappointed.
Okay. Okay, Frank Michael Smith joins us here. I like your very succinct and very well, what shall I say? Well- Articulated. Articulated.
Formulated.
The opposite of what I'm doing. Well-articulated answers, Frank. This is why they pay you the big bucks. However, let me push back a little bit or at least get you to try to provide your own context here because you talk about his offenses in Dallas. Some of the context for me is he walked into the No. 6 offense in the league the year before he got there with Jason Garrett and Kellen Moore.
It was already a really good offense. Dak Prescott was already throwing for 30 touchdowns. Does it bother you at all that McCarthy has won only one playoff game in his last seven seasons and that these high-scoring offenses he had in Dallas crashed in the playoffs each and every year?
12 points against San Fran, 17 against San Fran, seven points in the first half of a brutal loss to the Packers that basically started the McCarthy demise. What about his playoff record?
Well, do you want to compare it to Tomlin's? Because I think we're way ahead of schedule there. But I think his last playoff win was 2021, if I'm not mistaken.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of developing a young quarterback under McCarthy?
Why would you give him a five-year deal if it was win-now?
Well, what do you give him, a one-year deal? You have to give a new coach at least three.
Right, so you'd probably give him three. Probably, yeah. A lot of this, though, hinges on quarterbacks, and they all know it, and management knows it. It depends on what happens here. And I was of the belief that when McCarthy was hired, it in no way was done so because they wanted Aaron Rodgers back. I thought that was not a point in this.
I thought they just liked the coach for what he was able to do.
Chapter 7: Who are the potential quarterbacks the Steelers might consider drafting?
And that's a separate issue. I also think that in that press conference, he's not going to make a decision for Rodgers. Rodgers has to make that decision. So I think he would keep whatever door open, even though it may not be open. I don't know if it is or isn't. You can very easily get deceived by press conferences, I think. The one thing I loved about his is it was authentic.
He knew this was a place that is a special place. He wanted to be here, all of that. That's my biggest takeaway from that. I still don't know what the quarterback situation is going to be. And I honestly, do they, if Rogers hasn't made, I mean, if it's Rogers, Frank, then you would have to agree.
That's only a win now situation. Do you, you must not think it will be Rogers.
I'm going to side with you on this. I'll be disappointed if Rogers comes back. I really hope that's not a piece of the puzzle here that they're actively trying to push for. Um, I just don't know how anyone looks at the situation and says, you know, Rogers has got one more Super Bowl in him. It just doesn't look that way. So let's move on. Let's see what we have.
If we're bad, I'm not saying we should tank. I'm always going to be anti-tanking. I think it's toxic for the culture. But if you happen to lose less games with a guy like Will Howard starting, is it the end of the world? Probably not. You can come back in the draft next year and maybe a guy like Arch Manning is available.
What do you think of Nussmeier? We just talked about his dad's relationship with McCarthy, worked for him as a quarterback coach. Was he a victim of circumstances? Would you take a flyer on him on the second day, maybe?
Second day seems kind of early. I thought he was disappointing this year. Who knows, though? Here's what I would do. If I was Omar or whoever's calling the shots here in the front office for the draft, which is still a little unclear, by the way, because Omar's not a football guy. Right. So... A lot of that was Tomlin before. Who's calling the shots now? Is it Mike right away? We don't know.
But if I was this person in charge, I would draft a quarterback every single season until you get it right. That doesn't mean it has to be the first round. But I would draft the guy every single season and keep throwing darts. You have to. It's the NFL. You need to get that right. Limits?
Yeah, do you think, because Frank, we always talk about mid-round quarterbacks, and what is the ultimate upside of that?
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