A funny thing happened on the way to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ funeral that all your favorite talking heads planned during the offseason - Mike McCarthy kept winning. Because all Mike McCarthy has done in his career as a head coach is win.

He did it for 13 years as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers, where he became the second-winningest head coach in franchise history, his 135 wins trailing only Curly Lambeau. In those 13 years, the Packers went to the playoffs nine times and won the Super Bowl in 2010.

After his time in Green Bay came to an end, he took a gap year in 2019 before landing with the Dallas Cowboys in 2020. In five seasons with Dallas, he led the Cowboys to the playoffs three times, including three consecutive 12-win seasons from 2021-23. Despite that success, the Cowboys allowed his contract to expire and didn’t bring him back - how’s Brian Schottenheimer doing, by the way? Once again, he took a gap year and sat out the 2025 season. And while McCarthy was taking a pit stop away from football, the Pittsburgh Steelers were failing to catch the leaders of the race.

The Steelers were never bad under Mike Tomlin. In case you haven’t heard, he never had a losing season in his 19 years as head coach. However, the Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since the 2016 season. And despite Tomlin’s consistency and ability to back his way into a playoff berth, the lack of playoff success, as well as an inability to field a high-caliber offense, kept the Steelers in a stage of elite mediocrity.

And even so, the vast majority of national voices often scoffed at the idea of Pittsburgh moving on from Tomlin. “He would get another job in five minutes,” they would all cry out in unison as if Tomlin and the Steelers kept banging their head against a wall expecting different results.

But after yet another blowout playoff defeat at the hands of the Houston Texans in the 2026 wild card round, Tomlin stepped down as head coach. History told us that Pittsburgh would go the younger route to replace the former longest-tenured head coach in major American sports. Chuck Noll was 37 when he was hired by the Steelers in 1969. Bill Cowher was 34 when he was hired back in 1992, as was Tomlin when he was hired in 2007. Several names like Jesse Minter, Anthony Weaver, Chris Shula, and Nate Scheelhaase were all circled as the potential next coach of the Steelers, but it was the 62 year-old McCarthy who got the job to the ire of many. Almost instantly, those same talking heads who refused to ever criticize Mike Tomlin ridiculed the McCarthy hire, metaphorically nudging one another with their elbows and trying to contain their laughter.

“Hard to imagine a more uninspired choice for a franchise in the Steelers’ exact position.,” Robert Mays of The Athletic said.

ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky went as far to say that the Steelers pairing McCarthy with Aaron Rodgers would be “the worst decision Pittsburgh could make.”

Unfortunately, most walks of life adapt the rules of high school. There are the cool kids, and the ones who are deemed to be uncool. National media as a consensus decided long ago that Mike McCarthy wasn’t allowed to sit at their table, but contemporaries who first became head coaches in the same era as him - like Tomlin and Sean Payton - get treated as if they invented the forward pass despite McCarthy having more playoff wins than both of them and a Super Bowl ring.

So what has “the worst decision Pittsburgh could make” done through the first half of the season? Well, the Steelers are 6-2 and sit atop the AFC North at their bye week. Their six wins are tied for the most in the AFC, and they sit just a half game back of the No. 1 seed in the AFC. In the midst of their four game win streak, their offense ranks first in EPA per rush since Week 5, second in rushing yards, and third in yards per carry. Overall, Pittsburgh’s offense ranks seventh in EPA per play over that span and ninth in success rate while averaging just under 26 points per game. In conjunction with the offense coming to life has been the emergence of Jaylen Warren as a superstar. The former undrafted product out of Oklahoma State is third in the NFL in scrimmage yards behind only Jahmyr Gibbs and Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and he leads all running backs in total EPA.

Not only is the offense thriving, but so, too is the defense. A year after finishing 26th in total defense, the Steelers are sixth in the league in total defense through eight games. They are also tied for fifth in defensive EPA per play and lead the NFL with 26 sacks, with T.J. Watt leading the league with 7.5 sacks.

Everyone placed Pittsburgh in the metaphorical guillotine when they hired McCarthy. Meanwhile, his aforementioned fellow long-time head coach Sean Payton is currently fielding an offense that currently ranks 30th in yards per game while still receiving universal praise and having zero fault placed upon his shoulders. Despite all the outside criticism, all McCarthy and the Steelers have done is win. Everyone swore they would collapse when the Tomlin era ended, but they’ve gotten better instead, and McCarthy is getting the last laugh.

That was the cold open - this is the Hot Read.

In a conference that is lacking in truly elite teams, the Chicago Bears have claimed the right to be called the top team in the NFC after their blowout win over the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night.

Entering Week 8, no quarterback had topped 200 yards passing on Seattle’s defense. Caleb Williams went 24-of-34 for 247 yards and a touchdown, while the Bears’ run game added 126 yards on the ground. The bigger story, though, with the Bears isn’t their offense, which everyone expected to be great, it’s their defense of which no one expected to be great.

Entering the season, Aaron Schatz’ FTN Football Almanac projected the Bears to have the worst defense in football. And this is no shot whatsoever at Aaron, it’s a credit to defensive coordinator Dennis Allen for the job he’s done with a unit that lacked any big names entering the season. After eight weeks, the Bears are sixth in defensive EPA per play and third in defensive success rate. Most importantly, though, the Bears are the league’s best defense on third down, sporting the best defensive EPA per play in the NFL. Their defensive success rate on third down is also four percent higher than the second-place Vikings. Oh yeah, and they just traded for Jeffery Simmons.

With how dynamic Chicago’s offense is, balanced out by a truly great defense, it’s easy to put them atop the NFC hierarchy when the rest of the conference is largely swapping places by the week.

While the NFC is pretty cut-and-dry on who its top contenders currently are, the AFC remains wide open, as no team has looked truly dominant through eight weeks. The Buffalo Bills currently hold the No. 1 seed with a 6-1 record, but they have yet to look truly complete. Their offensive play-calling got very messy against a Ravens team that was down to its third quarterback until finally pulling away in the fourth quarter. Additionally, their defense is putrid, ranking 26th in EPA per play. The Broncos are the leaders of the AFC West, but their offense is as intimidating as a barn full of newborn kittens. Pittsburgh’s run game is elite, and they field one of the league’s top defenses, but there is something missing in the passing game that leaves you wanting more. The Bengals just made the Titans offense look like the ‘99 Rams. The Chiefs are throwing to hot dog vendors and Andy Reid is simply being outcoached.

The most complete team in the conference is the Jaguars. They just dropped 42 points on the Colts, which marks the third time they’ve scored at least 34 points in a game this season, and their defense ranks third in EPA per play. However, Jacksonville hasn’t won a playoff game since the 2021 season, and not being one of the blue blood teams in the conference over the last decade is leading to them being overshadowed.

Overall, the AFC has eight teams with 5+ wins compared to just five such teams in the NFC. The conference remains wide open as we begin the trudge through the winter months.

It’s never going to be popular to suggest that a team should trade a two-time MVP, but there is certainly a case to be made for the Ravens to do just that.

Lamar Jackson is on IR with a thumb injury that could end his season. This comes after he missed three games with an ankle injury, which led the Ravens to go 1-2 during his absence. This marks the fourth time in six seasons in which Jackson will miss extended time. He missed five games in both the 2021 and 2022 seasons, and missed four games in 2025, With his ankle injury and IR designation, he will miss seven games at the bare minimum in 2026, with it being very likely that the number will be much higher.

Jackson will be a free agent in 2028 if the Ravens don’t give him an extension. This season was largely seen as a prove-it type of year for the former first-round pick to show that he could stay healthy and be relied on to lead the Ravens for the extended future. But unfortunately for Lamar, the writing on the wall is becoming clearer. If he is indeed done for the season, he’ll be 30 the next time he touches a football field. 30 years old with just a single AFC Championship Game appearance and no Super Bowl berths. Are the Ravens really going to be itching to extend a 30 year-old oft-injured mobile quarterback to a $60+ million per year deal? Probably not, nor should they.

If Baltimore wanted to move on from Jackson, they can certainly do so next year. Per Over The Cap, trading him would save the Ravens just under $10 million against the cap. A restructure of Nnamdi Madubuike’s contract could save them $14 million against the cap, and letting go of a declining Roquan Smith would save them $20 million. Add in a release of Marlon Humphrey with a post June-1 designation, and the Ravens would be cap compliant, and that’s before a whole other slew of other adjustments they could make to free up even more money, i.e. Trey Hendrickson and Kyle Hamilton to create roughly $17 million in cap space.

Plus, a trade of Jackson would kick a rebuild into high gear. He would still garner two first-round picks, which would give Baltimore a lot of high-end ammunition to re-tool for the future. Considering it’s looking like they could be drafting in the top 10 in 2027, an additional pair of firsts over the next two years would give them more assets to find their eventual new franchise quarterback.

None of this is to say that Jackson is all of a sudden a bad football player, but sometimes it’s just time. The Harbaugh-Jackson era came to an end without a Super Bowl appearance, and Jackson is all but certainly past the peak of his career. On a new team that has money to spend for high-end weapons to put around Jackson, that team could contend. The Ravens, though, don’t have the financial ability to do that. With a new coaching staff currently fielding a roster largely full of aging players, ripping the band-aid and starting fresh is the right move.

The Chiefs looked poised to put at least three points on the board late in the fourth quarter. With 2:40 remaining in the fourth quarter, Kansas City had the ball at the Broncos’ 29 yard-line on 3rd-and-2. While unable to find an open receiver, Patrick Mahomes ran to his right and inexplicably took a sack from Alex Singleton instead of throwing the ball away. The sack took what would have been a 46-yard field goal and made it a 54-yard field goal for Harrison Butler, which he missed. The Broncos took over and scored a go-ahead touchdown, going up by four. Had Mahomes not taken the sack, perhaps Butker makes the field goal and Kansas City is able to kick a game-winner at the gun instead of having to go for a touchdown.

Cincinnati has zero semblance of a run game. A good bit of that is definitely due to their refusal to ever go under center, but a back like Taylor, who can beat teams up as a runner or receiver, would make them an even bigger offensive juggernaut than they already are.

The real Browns stood up on Sunday. Jared Verse talked all week just to finish with more suplexes received than tackles. Through eight games, Steelers undrafted defensive lineman Kevin Jobity has more sacks than Verse, who has yet to register one all season. The offense also failed to reach the end zone as Deshaun Watson was sacked eight times and looked much more like the quarterback we’ve grown to know.

I’ve seen enough. Over the last 15 months, the Cowboys have traded for/drafted the likes of Kenny Clark, Rashan Gary, Quinnen Williams, Caleb Downs, and Joey Porter Jr. Despite all those moves, though they are the league’s worst defense, ranking dead last in EPA per play and giving up the most rushing yards in the NFL. It’s clear that first-year defensive coordinator Christian Parker is in over his head. Move on from him, give the interim job to Mike Pettine, and see if he can salvage the second half of the season.

We led last week’s Hot Read with the Vikings and how they were a paper tiger, and that is still very much the case. They failed to score 20 points against a Lions defense that ranks 31st in EPA per play, and it marks the fourth time they’ve failed to reach the 20-point threshold this season. Kyler Murray is dealing with a hamstring injury, and honestly? The Vikings should bench him even if he is healthy enough to play. This offense had far more juice when Carson Wentz was running the show. Of the 35 quarterbacks who have played 100 snaps, Murray ranks 26th in EPA per play and 28th in pass success rate.

Well, we finally hit on a blowout prediction, so we can consider that curse lifted. Picking the Jaguars to have consecutive blowouts would be too easy, as they are projected to face you, the reader, at quarterback on Thursday when they host the Ravens. So instead, let’s be bold and make one that probably won’t happen, but is fun to fantasy book.

The Jets travel to Kansas City in Week 9. After losing to the Chiefs, Garrett Wilson stays put because the Jets trade him to Kansas City in exchange for a first-round pick. God knows the Chiefs need pass-catchers, as Xavier Worthy somehow finds himself in another state at least once a game, and the less said about Andrew Armstrong and Jalen Royals, the better. The Chiefs take a swing and get a legitimate No. 1 for Patrick Mahomes as they chase Super Bowl No. 4.