Mike Tomlin reached out to the Pacific Northwest to find his newest assistant coach.
The addition of Aaron Curry, however, comes at the expense of a long-time member of the Pittsburgh Steelers organization.
The hiring of Curry as inside linebackers coach Wednesday ended the tenure of Jerry Olsavsky, who has not been retained after spending the past 13 seasons on Tomlin’s coaching staff. Counting Olsavsky’s time as a player, he spent 22 years with the organization.
The Steelers did not announce Olsavsky’s departure, but his bio is no longer listed on the team website.
Olsavsky, 55, becomes the fourth member of the coaching staff to leave the organization since the end of the season.
Olsavsky was the Steelers’ 10th-round pick out of Pitt in 1989. He spent seven years on the team as an inside linebacker/special teams player. He returned to the organization in 2010 as a defensive assistant. He was promoted to inside linebackers coach in 2015.
Related:
• Steelers assistant head coach John Mitchell retires after 29 years with franchise
• Steelers lose senior defensive assistant Brian Flores to Vikings
Olsavsky remained on the staff last year after Tomlin hired Brian Flores as a senior defensive assistant/linebackers coach. Flores left the Steelers after one season to become defensive coordinator of the Minnesota Vikings.
That led to the hire of the 36-year-old Curry, who has extensive ties to the Seattle Seahawks organization. He was the team’s first-round draft pick — the No. 4 overall selection — in 2009 out of Wake Forest. He spent three of his four full NFL seasons with the Seahawks and returned to the organization in 2019 as a coaching assistant.
Curry spent two years as an assistant linebackers coach, then assisted on the defensive line for the past two seasons.
Curry will work with a linebacker group that could be vastly different than the one the Steelers used in 2022. Former first-round pick Devin Bush, who regressed after tearing his ACL in his second season, is a free agent and is unlikely to return. Robert Spillane, who became an every-down player late last season, also is a free agent, and the Steelers could decide to move on from Myles Jack, who is owed $8 million in 2023. The other linebacker on the roster is second-year player Mark Robinson, a converted running back.
A North Carolina native, Curry joined the Charlotte coaching staff in 2014. The following year he was promoted to defensive line coach and spent four seasons in that role. Curry had a role in the development of Steelers outside linebacker Alex Highsmith, who played on the defensive line at Charlotte while Curry was on the 49ers staff.
Curry left Charlotte in 2019 — Highsmith’s senior season — to join coach Pete Carroll in Seattle.
Steelers defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi, who is set to become a free agent, spent two seasons at Charlotte while Curry was his position coach.
Tomlin still has several openings on his staff. Assistant head coach and former defensive line coach John Mitchell retired last week after spending 29 years with the Steelers. Assistant wide receivers coach Blaine Stewart left the Steelers in January to take a position at West Virginia.
