Mike McCarthy doesn't have any trepidation about making Joe Whitt Jr. his assistant head coach. The only regret the Steelers head coach may have is not giving Whitt that distinction well before those two reunited in Pittsburgh.
Whitt, who's also the team's secondary coach, has been with McCarthy for 14 seasons across two stints together. But this is the first time he has a title that reflects how integral he is to McCarthy's coaching staff.
"I think my role is to help and assist Mike in the times he might not be able to run the team meeting," Whitt said. "I've been with him so long, I understand how he wants things done."
To hear McCarthy tell it, that's an understatement. Whitt, 47, first entered the NFL coaching ranks in 2007 as a defensive backs assistant for the Atlanta Falcons under coordinator Mike Zimmer.
But his roots in the profession go deeper than that. His father coached at Auburn for 25 years, retiring from that post in 2005, and assisted at various levels of the defense. Whitt has coaching in his blood, and he served as a student assistant with his dad when his playing career ended at Auburn.
"It's important to him. He's a great teacher," McCarthy said. "He's really good on the grass, which I hold in high demand, as far as the way he teaches. He's the same guy every day. He's been doing it for a long time, so we're very fortunate to have him."
Whitt was the defensive coordinator the past two seasons for the Washington Commanders, but for three years prior, he was McCarthy's defensive pass game coordinator and secondary coach with the Dallas Cowboys. Long before that, though, he interviewed for a quality control position on McCarthy's staff in Green Bay.
McCarthy gave Whitt the gig in 2008, and it didn't take long for that coach's son to climb the ladder. Whitt became McCarthy's cornerbacks coach for the Packers in 2009 and held that post until 2018, when he was promoted to defensive pass game coordinator. So, when exactly did McCarthy realize Whitt would be right for a right-hand man kind of responsibility?
"I mean, frankly, a long time ago," McCarthy said. "If I was guilty of anything, it was probably that I didn't give Joe the opportunity early enough."
Now Whitt will join forces with defensive pass game coordinator/defensive backs coach Jason Simmons, so Patrick Graham can carry out his vision as defensive coordinator. Whitt and Simmons coached together for eight years in Green Bay, then the past two with the Commanders, so they know how to run a position group side by side.
Much like they don't want to be too rigid with labels for their players, Whitt and Simmons want each other to be flexible, too. They have too much shared coaching history to be territorial.
"We are trying to input all of that information and give it to the players," Simmons said. "The way we don't minimize them is the way we don't minimize ourselves by saying 'corners' and 'safeties.' What we bring to the table is making sure we raise the level so everybody understands the entire structure of the defense."
Within that, they have some versatile pieces, and Whitt has experience playing chess with the back end of a defense. He didn't necessarily want to compare Steelers Pro Bowler Jalen Ramsey to Pro Football Hall of Famer Charles Woodson, but the similarities aren't hard to see.
Woodson was a perennial All-Pro cornerback before moving to safety for the final few seasons of his career. While coaching him with the Packers, Whitt recalls Woodson playing cornerback, safety, nickelback and even dime linebacker, sometimes all in the same game.
"He's one of the rare guys who could do that," Whitt said. "Jalen has a similar skill set. Similar size, similar speed, so just excited to see how we work with him and the way that we use him."
So perhaps there's no such idea as getting Ramsey settled into one precise spot, and the same could be said for safeties DeShon Elliott and Jaquan Brisker. But if there will be moving parts in the secondary, the Steelers will need to balance that with everyone being on one accord.
Graham has stressed communication since taking over as defensive coordinator, and players have been just as big on that going into 2026. Coaching a unit in which that's essential, Whitt has a key job, and he takes a no-nonsense approach to instilling it.
"The No. 1 thing is 'Steeler communication.' It's not how we did it in Green Bay or how [Graham] did it with the Raiders or wherever," Whitt said. "It's how we do it and call things here. We're very particular about, 'OK, this is what we're calling this route combination, this is what we're calling this check.' Don't say, 'Oh, it's just like this from what we called it here with the Steelers last year.'
"No, it's not. This is how we're calling it this year. This is how we're doing this. The quicker we can get those guys on the page of Steeler language and how we're doing it, the way PG wants to do it, you won't see any errors in the back end."
