After 14 seasons with Pete Carroll at the helm, the Seahawks are starting over. They are kicking Carroll to an advisory role. With this not being Carroll’s call, it is fair to label it a firing.
Lending further toward this split not being entirely amicable, Carroll said Wednesday he “competed pretty hard to be the coach” in 2024. The Seahawks are nevertheless moving on. Although the Seahawks have 10- and nine-year HC runs in their history (Mike Holmgren, Chuck Knox), Carroll is the longest-tenured HC in franchise annals by a wide margin.
Carroll, 72, said Monday he was expecting to be back with the Seahawks for a 15th season. Acknowledging he is “about as old as you can get in this business,” Carroll said today (via NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero) he did not foresee this outcome when he last met with the team. Carroll also does not know what his role with the organization will be yet, The Athletic’s Michael-Shawn Dugar tweets.
Given Carroll’s accomplishments, it is unsurprising ownership did not opt for a straight-up firing. A similar scenario is unfolding in New England with Bill Belichick — Carroll’s Patriots successor back in 2000 — though Carroll is not a lock to coach again. An NFL HC for 18 years (between stints with the Jets, Pats and Hawks), the Super Bowl winner/gum enthusiast did not slam the door on coaching somewhere else but acknowledged it is too early for such rumors. Based on his push to keep the gig he held for 14 years, Carroll still believes he can coach effectively.
The Seahawks are coming off their second straight 9-8 season, though this one veered toward disappointing due to the resources poured into the roster. Seattle re-signed Geno Smith on a three-year, $75MM deal, made two more first-round picks (Devon Witherspoon, Jaxon Smith-Njigba) and made two big-ticket D-line investments by giving Dre’Mont Jones a $17MM-AAV contract and making a buyer’s trade for Leonard Williams. Carroll’s defense ranked 30th in yards allowed, following a 26th-place ranking in 2022.
Although Carroll is seemingly set to play a role in Seattle’s front office, he will not have a say in who replaces him. GM John Schneider will lead the way on that front. Carroll said the chance for Schneider to pick a head coach became the biggest factor in his decision to accept this move to an advisory position, per Dugar and the Seattle Times’ Bob Condotta.
Schneider, 52, has ridden shotgun alongside Carroll throughout their time in Seattle. The GM arrived during the same 2010 offseason as Carroll, though the latter held final say. It is not known if the Seahawks will give Schneider full autonomy, or if both the GM and HC would separately report to Jody Allen, but the successful GM has been in place longer than all but one pure GM in the NFL. Only the Saints’ Mickey Loomis, hired in 2002, has served in his role longer than Schneider, who obviously played a major role in assembling Seattle’s Super Bowl XLVIII and XLIX rosters. The 15th-year GM is signed through 2027.
This change will almost definitely lead to major staff adjustments. The Seahawks will let Carroll’s assistants speak to other teams about jobs, with CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones noting the next HC will not be required to retain any staffers. Shane Waldron has completed three seasons as Seahawks OC, while Clint Hurtt has been in the DC role for two years.
Teams can block lateral moves for contracted coaches, so long as they do not involving a team wanting to interview a non-play-calling coordinator for a play-calling position. The Panthers did so earlier today, preventing an Ejiro Evero Jaguars DC interview. The Rams, however, made a similar good-faith gesture last year by letting Sean McVay‘s staffers explore other opportunities while he debated walking away.
Bring him to Atlanta. F it
It was time for a change. They’ve become stale.
Stale can be better to teams changing coach’s every year or two. We had those years in Seattle…Having Holmgram and Carroll has spoiled us.
Nick Saban retired too. Wow
Didn’t see that one coming. No indications.
Saban can’t compete in the NIL/transfer portal era – as Alabama simply doesn’t have the booster cash to be paying $millions to all their 4- and 5-star recruits.
More like he can’t stack five stars behind five stars. Roster turnover every year is a lot for a 72 year old to be dealing with.
I’ll go out on a limb and say if NIL isn’t in place or the transfer portal, his reputation as well as Alabama’s would have continued to lure players in droves
But you’re right. Who can blame him? They’ve turned “collegiate athletics” into just another wrung of the pro ranks. They’ve killed it with greed and corruption.
I’m not a fan of what college football has become but I support the athletes getting a piece of the financial pie. The NCAA and colleges have made billions of dollars off of them.
You know, I’m torn about all of that. On one hand, you’re exactly right. The NCAA is multi billion dollar conglomerate profiteering from student athletics
On the other, we tend to forget the trade off was a free-or at the very least, discounted education. THAT was supposed to be the trade off
Yes. Education. College. What a sick joke it’s become
Forgot to add…what’s the cost of a 4-year education at a D1 school these days, including room and board?
It’s funny to me that a great many “student athletes” clamoring for a piece of the financial pie likely are those who don’t go to class, never intended to, see no value in an education and look at college as simply a vehicle to play professionally
College sports has a long history of greed and corruption. Remember the pay-for-play SMU football program of the 1980s? Remember how Louisville had to vacate a National Championship in men’s basketball?
If by killed it you mean leveled the playing field.
They’re going after harbaugh. Scary
What kind of advisor is Carroll going to be for the Seahawks?? As for Saban I had a feeling if it was not this year it was going to be the season after that. He said something in a interview a while in Pasadena. He said he was having a problem with the transfer portal and the NIL said he was not a big fan of both.
The advisory role I think was a nice way of saying your fired.
Seattle has 9-8 talent, thus Pete has been doing well to get them to play to that level. It’ll be interesting to see if they can find someone that can do better – but I doubt it.
I disagree. They are a very talented team, Pete was holding them back with his archaic philosophies.
Give them a legit championship QB and they are way better than 9-8. Don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
They had damn near the worst defense in the league playing in the inferior conference. What you smoking?
Inferior conference??? 49ers are the one seed, Rams are in the playoffs, and the Seahawks have the same record as the Packers but lost out on the playoffs because of a complex tie-breaker system. The Cardinals are the worst team in the division, and they beat the Cowboys and the Eagles. The NFC West is the best/toughest conference in the NFC. That said, the Hawks D has been awful. Time to fire the entire defensive staff and go back to playing a 4-3 instead of this 3-4 that has not been able to stand up against the run.
The NFC West is a division.
Of course, it is. Luckily, we have heroes doing hero work.
The defense has been atrocious the last few years
Pete had final say on the roster, so it really was his fault.
Don’t think the problem is entirely roster construction. The scheme is bad. Constantly dropping guys into coverage that shouldn’t be. So many times in the last two years, we have seen Barton and Brooks chasing a slot receiver 20 yards down field. Yet I never saw Lockett or JSN being covered by the other team’s ILB. Time to put 4 guys with a hand on the ground and not play a 3-4 that has LB covering (or not covering) a WR.
Was Pete still under contract or had it expired? If he was still under contract he should have told the Seahawks to go F themselves and collect his paycheck while he lounged on a beach with a cocktail.
Lol, come April Pete will be bribing the janitor to let him into the draft meetings.
Pete Carroll would be the guy to offer aging veterans a last chance when no other coaches would take a gamble. I think the veteran players around the league really respected him for that and must be wondering where they can turn now for a final opportunity.
Some of those Seattle assistants might wind up in New England now that Belichick is OUT!