Dear Raiders fans: Unboxing your new coach? Here’s a handy Pete Carroll user’s manual
I will admit to feeling a bit wistful as I watched Pete Carroll introduce himself as the new coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
The whole Willy Wonka vibe. The confidence about who he is as a football coach and what he will do for a program, as he insists on calling a football team. The way he piles up 75-percent complete thoughts, one after another, until he has been talking for 6 minutes and 28 seconds and you realize that he hasn’t paused to take a breath, let alone allow a reporter to ask him a question.
It’s not that I miss the guy, though I do. It’s not that I think the Seahawks made a mistake in firing him, either, though I wouldn’t have done it.
It’s that I so vividly remember just how much fun it is to have that guy coaching your football team, especially when things start rolling. While I don’t know if he’ll be able to resuscitate the Raiders, I am 100 percent certain that if he does, it will create a hell of a spectacle, considering the number of devout maniacs and unrepentant lunatics who’ve remained faithful to that team through more than 20 years of misery. It’s actually frightening to think about what would be unleashed were Pete to give Raider fans something worth cheering, and while I won’t go so far as to say I hope that happens, I am curious.
In the meantime, I thought I’d pass along the user’s manual that I put assembled over the course of 14 years covering Pete and the circus that inevitably winds up congregating around him:
“Your Pete Carroll user’s manual”
Congratulations! You’ve just hired a coach backed by 25 years of consistent and occasionally historic success. Your Pete Carroll comes pre-charged, of course. Given the frequency with which he uses the term “juice” and the importance he places upon it, it would be silly not to have him ready to go the moment he’s unveiled.
There is going to be a lot of verbiage that your Pete Carroll introduces. Some of this will wind up posted on signs hung around the team’s headquarters saying things like “All in” or “It’s all about the ball.” Under no circumstances should you refer to these phrases as “mantras” or “slogans.” Your Pete Carroll sees these as elements of his underlying philosophy and should be treated as such. You should also refrain from noting any similarities you see between your Pete Carroll’s Raiders and a cult arranged around a single charismatic figure.
Your Pete Carroll doesn’t engage in power struggles. Unlike your last coach, he doesn’t like Instagram posts that question the future of star players. He doesn’t try to claim credit for success or avoid blame in defeat. He doesn’t leak information to the reporters who cover the team specifically or the league in general. This should be refreshing for the fans of what has been one of the league’s more dysfunctional franchises.
It’s important to understand that when your Pete Carroll is asked a question, he’s going to tell you what he hopes will happen. He will not be telling you the unvarnished truth about what he sees. He will not be telling you what he thinks is most likely to occur. He is giving you a best-case scenario. Understanding this will avoid a lot of confusion.
Your Pete Carroll is unfailingly positive when it comes to talking about players. He’s not going criticize players directly and he’s not going to leave breadcrumbs that allow you to read between the lines. The positive side of this is that the players will feel supported. The downside is that it’s very hard to determine just how committed your Pete Carroll is to a specific player. He’s going to keep praising that player right up until the moment that player is cut or traded at which point your Pete Carroll is unlikely to do more than express regret that it didn’t work out and wish that player the best going forward.
“He got through it,” is about as critical as your Pete Carroll will be in discussing one of his player’s performances.
Additionally, if your Pete Carroll says that an injured player “has a chance” to play this week, that player is almost certain to be out for another week. When a player is seriously injured, he will say, “We need to take care of him.” This sounds terribly dire, as if a prized thoroughbred is about to be euthanized, but all it means is that some sort of medical intervention is necessary. The player is almost certainly out for the remainder of the season.
When conducting a press conference, there are times that your Pete Carroll will seem to be rambling a bit. He will follow odd tangents, failing to complete one thought before jumping off to the next. This is completely normal. Eventually your Pete Carroll will come to a cul de sac in his own thought process. He will then stop and express moderate surprise at where that answer took him before taking another question. Carroll’s press conferences are the spoken-word equivalent of “Flight of the Bumblebee,” and if you just buckle in and enjoy the ride it can be pleasant and occasionally amusing.
Finally, your Pete Carroll loves to kick on fourth-and-short. Doesn’t matter if it’s a punt or a field-goal attempt. He loves his kicks. This can be very frustrating, especially in a league where coaches are becoming increasingly aggressive on fourth down, but for as much as your Pete Carroll resists conforming to the stereotypes of the American ball coach, he’s not so big on going for it.
This will generate a lot of complaints from people who will combine this with his emphasis on running the football and conclude that he is hopelessly old-fashioned. It is possible that there is some truth to this.
However, it misses the bigger picture, which is that your Pete Carroll is exceptionally good at doing the two hardest things for any football coach: getting his players to believe in themselves and each other. The fact that he does this while actively seeking to engage and connect with a fan base makes him capable of truly transformative change.
It happened when he went to USC. It happened in Seattle with the Seahawks. I don’t know if it’s going to happen with the Raiders, but I do know that will be incredibly fun watching him try.
Danny O’Neil was born in Oregon, the son of a logger, but had the good sense to attend college in Washington. He’s covered Seattle sports for 20 years, writing for two newspapers, one glossy magazine and hosting a daily radio show for eight years on KIRO 710 AM. You can subscribe to his free newsletter and find his other work at dannyoneil.com.
This story was originally published January 29, 2025 at 11:00 AM.