You have to go back to the year 2000 to find the last time Pete Carroll was not coaching football at some level, but that appears to be happening again as he will not be back as Seattle’s head coach in 2024.
Seattle chair Jody Allen announced Wednesday morning that Pete would no longer be the head coach, and will be staying on as an advisor. His role as VP of football operations was not addressed specifically by the team or by Carroll when he met with the media Wednesday afternoon. He did imply that GM John Schneider would have the ability to build the team in his own vision, which leaves the matter in doubt that Carroll will continue to have final say on personnel decisions.
Regardless of the manner in which Carroll finds himself involved with the team in the future, his impact as a coach and executive decision maker cannot be overstated. He took a franchise that had nose dived into irrelevance after its first Super Bowl appearance and turned them into one of the most legendary champions of all time. And he did all that in four seasons. That’s not just greatness, that’s amazing on a historic level that few coaches in the history of the sport can match.
Carroll first arrived in Seattle in 2010 with less than lofty expectations. Most fans were nervous that he would not be able to convert his incredible success at USC into a respectable franchise in the NFL. His previous two NFL coaching stops with the Jets and Patriots were mixed results as he was only given one year with the Jets, and had deteriorating results with New England after working with a roster he inherited from Bill Parcells.
But unlike his previous stops, Carroll now had final say on who was on his team and on his staff, which is not common in the NFL. The doubts were put aside but not to rest right away, as Carroll first stripped the roster down to the bolts and then built a new one that could contend with the modern NFL.
He led the team to their first division title since 2007, along with their first playoff appearance and playoff win in three years. They became just the first team in league history to win their division or make the playoffs with a losing record, and the prize for that was hosting the defending champion New Orleans Saints in the wild card round. Many expected the Saints to roll over Seattle, with Vegas closing the line with the Saints as 10 point road favorites. Seattle’s combination of Matt Hasselbeck playing healthy playoff football for the first time in years along with Mike Williams’ size at receiver and the unpredictable running style of Marshawn Lynch was too much, and Seattle won 41-36.
Carroll had set Seatle up for a great future by trading for Lynch during the season, and also had a really solid first draft that included franchise building blocks Russell Okung, Earl Thomas, and Kam Chancellor.
Seattle took a step back in 2011 as Hasselbeck signed with Tennessee and Carroll tried to fill his spot with a combination of Tarvaris Jackson and Charlie Whitehurst. Carroll drafted more building blocks with KJ Wright and Richard Sherman, and signed Doug Baldwin as an undrafted free agent. While they finished with another 7-9 record, they finished 3rd in the division and missed the playoffs.
In 2012 Carroll drafted the missing pieces to his roster, and in those players he found who would become the leaders on both sides of the ball in Russell Wilson and Bobby Wagner as well as another key player in Bruce Irvin. Seattle posted their first winning record since 2007, and won a playoff game before losing in the divisional round.
2013 became the banner year for Carroll, Wilson, and the Seahawks franchise. Under a more comfortable Wilson and a dominant defense led by Wagner, Sherman, Thomas, and Chancellor as well as new pass rusher Michael Bennett, the team cruised to a 13-3 record. They beat the Saints to win a trip to the NFC Championship for the first time since 2005, and defeated their division rival San Francisco for their ticket to the Super Bowl, also their first since 2005. In the Super Bowl, it was all roses and no drama as Seattle destroyed Peyton Manning and the Broncos record setting offense 43-8, with Seattle up 22-0 at halftime – and it only got tougher for Denver from there.
2014 was very similar to 2013, but only on paper. The team won a lot of games, but they just didn’t look like they were playing as hard as the year before. They won 12 games and again had homefield advantage, but this time there was trouble in the conference championship and the Super Bow. In the NFC Championship game, Seattle trailed Green bay 16-0 at half time. The score was 19-7 with less than 4 minutes left in the game, and with some all time great plays, Seattle took the lead. Even though Green Bay was able to force OT with a late field goal, Seattle scored a touchdown and punched their ticket to a second consecutive Super Bowl.
Seattle had the ball and a chance to win the Super Bowl in 2014, but opted to pass from the one yard line instead of handing it off to Lynch and the game ended in disaster as Wilson’s pass was intercepted at the goal line.
And that’s when Carroll’s time in Seattle started its descent, albeit a very slow one. Over the next several years, many of the players that got them to the Super Bowl began departing for more cash or playing time somewhere else, and Seattle put together winning seasons but did not have much luck in the playoffs. They missed the playoffs in 2017, and by 2019 they had an entirely new defense that was among the league’s worst. The team had trouble getting value out of their drafts and the product on the field continued to diminish.
2022 was bittersweet, as the team opted to trade Wilson to Denver and make Geno the starter, along with releasing Wagner to allow him to sign with a contender. Carroll found his draft mojo again, adding Charles Cross, Kenneth Walker III, Abraham Lucas, and Tariq Woolen. The new look team banded together and fought their way to a 9-8 record and a playoff spot, but were defeated by the 49ers.
In 2023, Pete had another good draft. He added Devon Witherspoon and Jaxon Smith Njigba to his growing talent pool, and re-signed Wagner after a year away with the Rams. On paper the team looked even more talented than the year before, but the results weren’t better. Injuries set them back and even though they won 9 games, they missed the playoffs despite wins in three of their final four games.
Carroll’s final season as the head coach was better than how a lot of coaches ride off into their career sunset, even if that’s not how he wanted to leave things. But consider that many other coaches would not have been able to get a winning record out of the same roster. Look back on most of the years he was in Seattle, and that’s probably still true. Plenty of coaches can just ride with the players they have, but few inspired greatness like Pete.
Known for his youthful to a fault positive energy and insistence on publicly supporting his players no matter what was going on inside the building, Carroll was anything but old school when it came to coaching. He may have preferred a more traditional system when it comes to offense and defense, but he was the great teacher that found a way to connect with everyone – the kind of person those people still talk about as a difference in their life some decades later.
At his Wednesday press conference, Carroll mentioned that he fought like hell to be the coach, implying the mutual decision for him to step away from coaching was not actually mutual. With this being year two after Russell Wilson departed, you can’t help but wonder what he could have done with this team in years three and four knowing the way it went last time. But we’ll never know.
Carroll said he still feels full of energy and jacked up, so it may be only a matter of time until his name is attached to another coaching spot, given the amount of jobs open at the moment. He’s the youngest 72 going on 73 year old you’ll ever find, so don’t worry about a “old guy” coaching your team. He’s the farthest thing from old no matter what his amount of years on the planet might lead to you think.
Now Seattle has the unenviable task of replacing him, and doing so with a person that will take over a roster he built, so you can bet that some players won’t be staying. Replace the best coach the franchise has ever had with who you might ask? That’s a great question, and the most qualified candidates are either still coaching in the playoffs or may not be available to interview just yet. But the draft and free agency are already fast approaching, so they will need to get someone on board fast.
Pete said he wants to be remembered like Roy Hobbs – and if you don’t know the reference I’ll spare you a little time and tell you it’s not the full name of Calvin’s tiger pal. He wants to be remembered as the best there ever was, and while he may not wind up on the Mount Everest of NFL coaches, he’s still a legend just like Hobbs was.
When you look back on his career in the future, you won’t be able to help smiling, and aside from winning that might be the best legacy a person can have in sports.
The only question we have now is if Pete is finally done coaching, what happens to all the juicy fruit gum in existence?
