Steelers' Mike McCarthy Confirms He Plans To Make A Big Mistake

The Pittsburgh Steelers spent the offseason selling multiplicity as a feature, not a complication. Their defense would move pieces around, disguise intentions and keep expensive stars fresh enough to finish games. Four weeks later, there is a fair question hiding inside all that flexibility: at what point does being able to use a player everywhere become an excuse not to use him where he is most dangerous?

Former Steelers quarterback Charlie Batch believes Pittsburgh has crossed that line with Nick Herbig. Batch specifically questioned why a player the organization just paid like a premier edge defender is spending snaps off the ball and dropping into coverage while the pass rush searches for more consistent production.

Herbig signed a four-year, $100 million extension in June that included $42 million guaranteed. The deal came after he produced a career-high 7.5 sacks in 2025 and pushed his three-year total to 16 despite never starting more than six games in a season. Pittsburgh was not paying for mystery. It was paying for a player whose best NFL trait had already announced itself loudly: get him pointed toward quarterbacks and let him ruin things.

Through four games in 2026, that destruction has not arrived. Herbig has zero sacks, one quarterback hit and one forced fumble while playing 123 defensive snaps. TJ Watt has supplied 4.5 sacks himself, leaving Pittsburgh still searching for more complementary pressure. Herbig's slow start looks stranger because his climb from fourth-round pick to nine-figure extension was built on turning limited opportunities into splash plays.

During a recent discussion on The Snap Count, Batch argued that the problem goes beyond Herbig simply starting slowly. His criticism was aimed at how Pittsburgh is choosing to deploy him.

“The rotations are happening when the coaches choose to bring that particular rotation in. So, I think that’s the frustration that is brewing… Nick Herbig… they’re playing him out of position. This is not why you signed him to the big deal in the offseason. He rushes the quarterback, but now you have him off the ball in coverage,” Batch said.

There is nothing inherently wrong with Herbig dropping occasionally. That versatility was part of Pittsburgh's defensive vision under Patrick Graham, and disguising which outside linebacker is coming can make protection calls miserable. If every snap with Herbig on the field screams pass rush, an offense gets a useful clue before the ball moves.

The problem is proportionality. Herbig's ability to cover should be seasoning, not the meal. Pittsburgh did not hand him a nine-figure extension because of his backpedal. His value was built on first-step quickness, bend, violent hands and a knack for attacking the football once he reached the quarterback. Those skills become much less useful when he begins a snap several yards off the line instead of beating a tackle.

The rotation philosophy itself is deliberate. Mike McCarthy said before the season that Pittsburgh wanted to distribute defensive playing time with the long schedule in mind and specifically did not want Watt averaging more than 60 snaps every week. Keeping elite rushers fresh is sensible. September football should not require players to empty the tank as though every Sunday is an elimination game.

Batch's criticism attacks what happens inside those rotations. If the substitution package gets so committed to predetermined roles that it removes a player's best trait from the play, freshness stops being the only calculation. Pittsburgh can win the snap-count spreadsheet and still lose the third down.

That criticism feels especially relevant after Cleveland. The Cleveland Browns repeatedly gave their quarterback time to work through Pittsburgh's coverage during the 27-24 loss, and the Steelers finished with only two sacks while generating pressure on just 21.6% of dropbacks. An already shuffled secondary needed the front to shorten plays. Watching a $100 million edge defender drop away from the quarterback in that environment is naturally going to invite questions.

Herbig is not innocent simply because the scheme asks him to do multiple things. When Pittsburgh sends him, he still has to win. Zero sacks through four games cannot be explained entirely by alignment, and his contract means the standard should be higher regardless of assignment.

Still, football staffs spend months talking about putting players in position to succeed. Herbig's position to succeed has never been particularly difficult to locate.

Steelers Cannot Let Versatility Become Overthinking

Graham inherited an enviable problem. Watt, Herbig and Alex Highsmith give Pittsburgh three established edge rushers capable of changing possessions. The appeal of having all three is supposed to be that offenses cannot comfortably account for every threat, not that one of the threats becomes an expensive decoy too often.

There will be snaps where dropping Herbig is exactly the right call. A well-timed simulated pressure can create a free rusher elsewhere, and an interception or forced checkdown counts just as much as beating a tackle around the corner. Predictability gets good pass rushers chipped, doubled and neutralized.

But flexibility is useful only when it makes the opponent uncomfortable. If Pittsburgh is making Herbig less dangerous in the name of making the defense more sophisticated, the Steelers are outsmarting themselves. A $100 million edge rusher should spend most of his important passing downs threatening the edge.

Batch is not asking Pittsburgh to rip pages out of Graham's playbook. He is asking the staff to remember why Herbig became expensive enough to require one. The point of having versatile players is to create bad choices for the offense, not voluntarily choose the least threatening version of one of your own defenders.

The Steelers paid for a quarterback hunter. They should be careful about turning him into a Swiss Army knife and then wondering where the sacks went.

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