Tua Tagovailoa’s return to Pittsburgh puts extra pressure on Mike McCarthy’s debut

The last time quarterback Tua Tagovailoa started a game in Pittsburgh, it became his last start with the Miami Dolphins. He was benched after the 28-15 loss on a Monday night in December — and he was cut in March.

Fast forward to September, and Tua will be returning to Pittsburgh as the Week 1 starter for the Falcons.

If it goes poorly, Tua may not be starting for very long. If it goes well, and if the Falcons upset the Steelers (Pittsburgh is currently favored by 3.5 points), there will be a very strong reaction in Western Pennsylvania.

Losing to Tua after drubbing him less than nine months earlier will provide the first clear apples-to-apples comparison between new coach Mike McCarthy and his predecessor, Mike Tomlin. Nuances will easily be lost on Steelers Nation. Yes, the Falcons are an overall better team than the 2025 Dolphins. The common denominator is the quarterback; if he plays dramatically better than he did the last time he played in Pittsburgh, Steelers fans will interpret that as an indication that the new boss won’t have the same kind of success as the old boss.

It would be dubbed an overreaction. But that’s what football fans do. With only seventeen games in a season, they all count. They all spark a reaction. And, at some point, the trend of overreacting shows that, actually, it’s the normal and usual reaction to a team losing a game it should have won.

The Steelers have more than a few winnable games in the eight weeks before the bye, including two against the Browns. Anything less than 5-3 will spark high anxiety on and after Week 10, where the Eagles, Broncos, Texans, Jaguars, a road game at the Bengals, and two games against the Ravens are lurking.

The fans who show up in six days will be expecting a 1-0 start. If the end result is 0-1, sphincters will be tightening quickly in the Steel City.