The Pittsburgh Steelers are out of Latrobe and back at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex, also referred to as the South Side Facility. We are already into the regular season, where everything is magnified and, you know, actually counts. The team is working through the highs and lows and dramas that go through a typical Steelers season.
How are the rookies performing? What about the players that the team signed in free agency? Who is missing time with injuries, and when are they going to be back? What are the coaches saying about what they are going to do this season that might be different from how it was a year ago?
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: Is Mike Munchak now committed to the Steelers in 2019?
Soon after the Steelers learned that their season was over, reports quickly surfaced that their offensive line coach, Mike Munchak, was in high demand on the coaching circuit as a top interview for vacant head coaching positions. We have heard his name connected with at least three or four different teams.
The only interview that he appears to have accepted, however, was that of the Denver Broncos’ vacancy after they fired Vance Joseph two years into his contract as a first-time head coach. We learned that Munchak had ‘significant interest’ in the job and the fact that his daughter and granddaughter live in the Denver area was a tremendous draw.
The Broncos opted instead for Vic Fangio to be their next head coach, however, which by extension means that Munchak was passed over. So the question now is, is that it for 2019? Will he not pursue any of the other (admittedly dwindling) number of vacancies remaining? To be quite honest, I’m not even sure if any of the teams he was reportedly connected to still have vacancies.
It did have the feel of the situation boiling down to being Denver or nothing for Munchak, but feelings can change. He went through the motions of an entire head coaching interview process, so there’s obviously a part of him that is still interested in owning that role.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love working with the Steelers and with the group of offensive linemen he has been blessed to have at his disposal. He has turned them into the best in the league, which is exactly why so many teams have been interested in him.
Is the coast clear for 2019? How about 2020? Are we going to be on a Munchak watch every year from now on?v
