The Associated Press Mike McCarthy recently coached five seasons with the Dallas Cowboys after 13 seasons in Green Bay.

PITTSBURGH — A “winning track record” appears to be the top reason the Pittsburgh Steelers are hiring Mike McCarthy as their new head coach.

According to an article on Steelers.com, McCarthy’s age of 62 or the fact that he’s a Pittsburgh native did not play the biggest role in owner Art Rooney II’s selection of the former Green Bay and Dallas coach to succeed Mike Tomlin.

“(McCarthy) is someone who has a longer track record than many of the other candidates, a winning track record,” Rooney said. “He’s been a winner everywhere he’s been. Probably just as important for our purposes, the quarterbacks that he’s worked with have all been very successful. So he has a proven track record of developing top flight quarterbacks. Those are the things that maybe stick out the most.”

McCarthy worked with Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay and Dak Prescott in Dallas, he has 174 regular season wins, and he owns a Super Bowl ring.

“We wound up bringing in three guys for in-person interviews — Brian Flores, Mike McCarthy and Anthony Weaver — and then we sat down and talked about whether we had our man, or if we wanted to bring in more people for in-person interviews,” Rooney said. “We decided that Mike was the man for the job, and so we went ahead and offered him the job on Saturday.”

Rooney said McCarthy’s relationship with Rodgers, the Steelers’ quarterback this past season, did not play a role in his decision. Rodgers will be a free agent this offseason.

“We decided to bring Mike on because we believe that he’s the right coach for us at this point to help lead us to a championship,” Rooney said. “We don’t know what Aaron’s plans are right now, and that did not weigh heavily in the decision. We’ll see where Aaron is, and we’ve left the door open, but obviously we all have to sit down and see if that makes sense. So that’ll happen sometime in the next month or so. But the decision was made based on Mike being the coach we want, and it really had very little to do with whether Aaron is going to be back or not.”

Rooney also addressed the mostly negative reaction from the Steelers’ fan base.

“We’re really not worried about winning the initial press conference. It’s about picking the coach we believe will help us win games,” Rooney said, “and social media really doesn’t enter into it. And none of that will matter once we’re starting to play games.

“The message for our fans is we’re very excited. We think we have a coach who is well-equipped to lead us into the next winning phase of Steelers football, and that’s what it’s all about. I think they’re going to love Coach Mike.”

Rooney and Steelers General Manager Omar Khan will introduce McCarthy as the franchise’s head coach at a press conference at 2 p.m. today. The press conference will be streamed live on Steelers.com