PITTSBURGH — Mike McCarthy is a really good football coach, and we have established that already.

He is also a Pittsburgh guy, grew up in Greenfield and went to Bishop Boyle, coached at Pitt. We have all heard and read the story over and over, so I don’t need to continue down that path.

I like McCarthy’s resume, which includes a Super Bowl title, 11 playoff wins, eight division titles and four appearances in the NFC championship game. He was impressive getting the dysfunctional Dallas Cowboys to three consecutive 12-win seasons.

The man can coach, which is why all of the immediate reaction and backlash from Steelers fans is silly because it is all based on expectations. They all convinced themselves they were getting a young, energetic whiz kid, and instead they ended up with a twice-fired retread who is 62.

McCarthy will work fine, I am sure, and the Steelers will continue down the path of winning seasons and competing for the playoffs. He will get them to the nine- or 10-win mark more often than not, and they will play meaningful games in December and early January.

The thing I don’t understand is why the Steelers went this route, other than Art Rooney II is more interested in playing it safe than making an inspired hire that might have upside.

Mike McCarthy’s resume reads like this:

— 18 seasons, 174-112-2, 12 playoff seasons, eight division titles and one Super Bowl.

You know who that resume is almost identical to?

Mike Tomlin. And it is actually uncanny ...

— 19 seasons 193-114-2, 13 playoff seasons, eight division titles and one Super Bowl

In other words, they replaced Tomlin with basically the same coach who just left, and that tells me they aren’t interested in getting back to the next level of championship football.

Rooney played it safe. He opted for the coach who has a track record of some success because he wants to keep this string of “non-losing seasons” intact and knows that is what he has in McCarthy.

This should have been a place where the Steelers were able to do a total reset of the organization. Instead it is going to be more of the same. The reason Tomlin was kept around was because he kept the Steelers at a level of “just good enough,” and that’s the new standard, apparently.

I don’t know if any of those young guys would have worked out better, but I will say that there is an upside with those hires that doesn’t exist with McCarthy.

McCarthy will keep the Steelers in a pro-style offense and — despite being an offensive-minded coach — will allow the team to continue to be led by the defense because he is old school. He will run a good offense. He is a good developer of quarterbacks. And the Steelers will be structured, organized and schematically sound.

There is actually a good chance he will convince Aaron Rodgers to dust himself off and squeeze one more season out of his aging body, too. That would be ridiculous because, again, the goal should be to move forward, and all that would do is push the actual rebuild and reset one more season down the road.

But is there anybody out there who thinks McCarthy has a ceiling higher than where Tomlin had the Steelers the last decade? Is there anybody who thinks McCarthy will become the first coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl for two different franchises?

I am not saying Chris Shula and Co. would definitely get the Steelers to the Super Bowl, but they are untested, young and hungry, and that is the profile of the coach the Steelers have hired in the past.

A guy like Shula is high-risk but also potentially high-reward, and the Steelers should be bold, reaching for the sky. They should be taking that risk on a Shula-like coach to see if they can strike gold in a coaching hire for the fourth time in a row.

What they said in hiring McCarthy is that the status quo is now good enough. It is now acceptable to play it safe and make sure you can win just enough to convince yourself that you are close to being a contender every year.

That is probably the difference between Dan Rooney and Art Rooney II, as the former is one of the best football executives in the NFL because he was willing to take risks and be cutting edge in his thinking.

He hired Tomlin when nobody outside of Tomlin’s family and maybe a few Vikings fans knew who the heck he was. He took a chance and it paid off with two Super Bowl trips in four years and 19 seasons of winning football.

It was clear, though, the last few years it became stale under Tomlin and it was time for a change. The team had reached its ceiling and wasn’t ever going to take the next step no matter how many chances they gave Tomlin to get it right.

Now, instead of hitting the reset button and really making a change, Rooney opted for more of the same — barely above .500 seasons, old-school football philosophy and lack of advancing in the playoffs.

I hope I am wrong, as it is always so much fun to cover teams that win and make Super Bowl runs, but I fear I am right. This is the safest hire the Steelers could have made, which is why I am shocked they did it. But safe and uninspired is a great way to describe the Steelers under the direction of the current ownership.

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