LET THE QUARTERBACK CONTROVERSY BEGIN.

The Pittsburgh Steelers indeed did hire former Packer and Cowboy coach Mike McCarthy as their fourth head coach since 1970.  There might be a few academic hires from 1970 still in the common room, but there are freeway flyer adjunct faculty with longer times under contract than most coaches these days.

Part of the reason those guys could stick along so long was their relative youth as coaches. They could coach a long time and still not be overly old.

McCarthy is in a different boat, a very experienced head coach but one with a lot more years under his belt.

That doesn't mean it will or won't work. It's just an interesting breaking of the trend.

McCarthy is from Pittsburgh, which certainly gives him bonus points here.

Now, everyone wants to see if he'll bring Aaron Rodgers back to rekindle their relationship from their Packers days.

From there, Pittsburgh will hope to start winning playoff games again, something that hasn't happened there in about a decade.

I'm not sure "rekindle their relationship" is what either the coach or Steeler management had in mind.  Billy Heyen with The Sporting News reports that Aaron Rodgers is currently "a fan of McCarthy."  Danica Patrick was not available for comment.