The Pittsburgh Steelers‘ preseason opener against the Packers had its share of feel-good moments. But let’s be honest, discipline was the story of the night, and not in a good way. This is exactly the kind of sloppy play a brand new coaching staff simply can’t afford this early in the process.
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By halftime alone, Pittsburgh had already been flagged seven times for 85 yards, and owner Art Rooney II wasn’t hiding how he felt about it during the KDKA broadcast.
“Too many penalties so far,” Rooney said. “That’s one thing we’ve gotta clean up.”
He said that right after linebacker Cole Holcomb picked up a personal foul, hitting Packers quarterback Ty’Rod Taylor, who had already slid and given himself up. That’s the kind of penalty a veteran player just shouldn’t be committing.
Moments later, when cornerback Doneiko Slaughter drew a similar unnecessary roughness flag on that same drive, Rooney spoke up again.
“Too many penalties,” he said. “You can’t be making mistakes like that.”
Head coach Mike McCarthy was thinking the same thing.
“The post-whistle stuff, we’ve had a couple there that we can’t have,” he told KDKA sideline reporter Missi Matthews at the half.
Safe to say McCarthy wasn’t thrilled with how his team played in that first half. Sure, it’s preseason, so some rust is understandable. But finishing the night with 10 penalties for 121 yards in a 28-9 win is still worth paying attention to, especially with special teams contributing more than their fair share of flags.
This wasn’t the first time McCarthy called out these mistakes either. He’d already brought it up on the practice field during camp. A few days earlier, according to DK Pittsburgh Steelers’ Chris Halicke, McCarthy made it known he wasn’t happy with how practice went on August 6, 2026.
His frustration boiled down to two things: pre-snap penalties and shaky execution while the team worked through its heavy installation schemes.
Beat writer Nick Farabaugh also weighed in.
“Mike McCarthy says yesterday was ‘not our best practice’ between the miscommunications and pre-snap penalties. McCarthy says they counted seven total pre-snap penalties,” Nick Farabaugh posted on X on August 7.
The issues showed up in specific moments during practice. During a “Franco Moment” drill, where the offense was pinned back at their own one-yard line, rookie receiver Germie Bernard jumped early and drew a false start, forcing the whole rep to reset. That’s according to Chris Adamski’s report from Day 14 of camp.
On top of that, the team dealt with botched QB to center exchanges and struggled to hold up protection during red zone blitz drills. It got to the point where coaches started pulling players out of reps mid-drill just to reset the huddle.
And honestly, the penalty problem was all McCarthy could think about ahead of the game.
“Green Bay means a lot to me personally and professionally, but I am more worried about our pre-snap penalties right now, to be honest,” McCarthy said.
However, all the training slip-ups showed up in the game too. Some sloppiness was expected in game one, but this level of it is enough to raise a few eyebrows among the new coaching staff.
Steelers’ new coaching staff faces early execution issues
After nineteen years running the show, Mike Tomlin stepped aside as Steelers head coach, and Mike McCarthy, who had previously led the Packers and Cowboys, took over. Two weeks into training camp, though, the Super Bowl-winning coach wasn’t thrilled with what he saw.
Sure, installing new systems on both sides of the ball was bound to cause some bumps. But McCarthy wasn’t shy about admitting the mental errors were piling up more than he’d have liked.
“I don’t like where we are as far as the number of missed assignments… They’re a little higher than normal,” said McCarthy in a press conference.
McCarthy went on to admit that the number of mental slip-ups in camp was “a little higher than normal.”
A lot of this traced back to how much new material the players were absorbing at once. Layering fresh offensive and defensive packages on top of each other had led to communication breakdowns, and pre-snap penalties just hadn’t cleaned up as fast as the coaching staff hoped.
McCarthy got that some friction came with learning a new system, but he made clear the volume of mistakes had gone beyond what he’d normally expect from an NFL roster. For a coach trying to build a physical, detail-first culture in Pittsburgh, tightening up the mental side of the game wasn’t optional.
He chalked a good chunk of it up to the grind of installation football, while still giving players credit for pushing through a heavy playbook load.
Even so, calling the team out publicly showed how much urgency he brought once preseason games actually got underway. Penalties remained the biggest thing left to fix.