New Steelers ILB coach Scott McCurley planning to make most of unplanned homecoming

Scott McCurley is the quintessential western Pennsylvania football success story.

A New Castle native, McCurley played at Mohawk and then walked on at Pitt. It didn’t take long for him to gain a scholarship, and the gritty linebacker became a four-year letterman for the Panthers.

After his playing days concluded, he remained at Pitt as a graduate assistant before beginning the slow coaching trek at an NFL level. Two decades later, he returned to his hometown as Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebackers coach, one of two staff changes that occurred on the defensive side of the ball.

It wasn’t McCurley’s intent, though, to come home at this stage of his career. Not that he was against a reunion; it wasn’t a priority during the years he spent with the Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys.

Yet, here he is working on the other side of UPMC Rooney Sports Complex from where he trained with the Panthers.

“I didn’t think much about it,” McCurley said during minicamp last week. “But I love it. It’s a dream being back on the South Side. It’s awesome. I can’t say how much I respect the organization from the outside in, looking at it. I love being here. I love everybody I get the chance to work with.”

Hired by Greenfield native Mike McCarthy in Green Bay in 2006 as a coaching administrator intern, McCurley followed his mentor to Dallas in 2020. Like McCarthy, he spent a year away from football in 2019 when both weren’t retained by the Packers.

In Dallas, McCurley got his first full-time chance at coaching linebackers and worked with All-Pro Micah Parsons. When McCarthy was let go in January, McCurley didn’t wait around to see where his old boss would land. He jumped at a chance to work with Steelers coach Mike Tomlin.

“It’s a pleasure,” he said. “Seeing him work from the outside in, I always had the utmost respect for him. Being in the building with him and seeing the way he communicates with everyone, his love and passion for the game, his direct approach, his consistent communication — it makes it easier for me as a coach.

“I know what he wants.”

What Tomlin wants is to eliminate the leaks that sprung in the defense late in the season during a five-game losing streak that ended with the Baltimore Ravens rushing for 299 yards in the AFC wild-card playoff round.

Aaron Curry left his post as inside linebackers coach after two seasons, making a lateral move with the New York Jets. Tomlin brought McCurley aboard Feb. 15.

Inside linebacker Patrick Queen, who is entering his second season with the Steelers, sees similarities in his former position coach and his new one.

“Both are fired-up coaches,” Queen said. “They love to coach, love to pick your brain about stuff you see on the field. They both have our best interests in their heart.”

McCurley’s mission is improving the communication issues that hurt the Steelers late last season. Communication issues were a reason Tomlin replaced secondary coach Grady Brown with Gerald Alexanders, but those problems weren’t confined to the back end of the defense.

“A lot of it starts there, making sure we are on the same page,” McCurley said. “It’s presnap communication, knowing our roles, executing the run game, what we’re doing, what we’re trying to get accomplished. It’s how are we trying to get the ball out of their hands and fitting into that piece. Then, from there, it’s fundamentals like getting off blocks, playing aggressive and tackling guys.”

McCurley doesn’t have a player of Parsons’ pedigree under his tutelage, but he has some quality foundational pieces, starting with Queen, who played every snap last year during the regular season. Queen led the Steelers with 129 tackles and was a late replacement for the Pro Bowl, marking the second consecutive season he appeared in that all-star game. Elandon Roberts left in free agency, but the Steelers replaced him with another former Ravens linebacker, Malik Harrison. Cole Holcomb is back after missing a season and half with a gruesome leg injury.

The Steelers also have second-year linebacker Payton Wilson, who finished fourth on the team with 72 tackles despite playing fewer than half of the defensive snaps.

“That is where it starts — the speed, the aggressiveness, the violence with which they play,” McCurley said. “To have PQ, to have Payton, to have Cole come back, it’s great to have that asset. At the same, it’s great to have a guy like Malik to balance out with his physicality. When you look at the versatility of the group, and the way they are built, we can do a lot of things.”