Pete Carroll on the future of his 5-10 Seahawks: No need to ‘restart this whole thing’
This is Pete Carroll’s worst season as a head coach since his first season ever as a head coach.
How long ago was that?
Bill Clinton was president.
It was 1994. Carroll went 6-10 in his first season coaching the New York Jets. It was his only season coaching the Jets. They fired him.
Sunday, his Seahawks lost for the 10th time in 15 games this season, blowing two 10-point leads after halftime in a another dismal defeat, 25-24 to the Chicago Bears in the Seattle snow. It will be the Seahawks’ first losing season since 2011, their last one before Carroll and general manager John Schneider drafted Russell Wilson to become their franchise quarterback.
This is the second time in 10 seasons Carroll’s Seahawks will not be in the playoffs.
Monday, on his weekly radio show the day after games on KIRO-AM, the 70-year-old Carroll was asked what the future is for the Seahawks, meaning 2022 and beyond.
Initially, Carroll said this was not the time for that, because he was coaching to win the final two games of this season: Sunday at home against Detroit (2-12-1) and Jan. 9 at Arizona (10-5).
Carroll also said this: “The talent is there. ...
“Not for one reason at all am I thinking that we have to restart this whole thing and create a new philosophy and a new approach. I think we have the essence of what we need.”
He said the team has seen in the last few games, with the re-emergence of previously mothballed end Carlos Dunlap (five sacks in five days after two against Chicago), how important a consistent pass rush is to the defense and entire team.
Carroll also said the Seahawks in no way can stand pat. He said they have to continue to add players who will improve the team. He didn’t name specific positions and said the expiring contracts for players such as Pro Bowl safety Quandre Diggs, left tackle Duane Brown, cornerback D.J. Reed and others are issues “we will figure out” after the 2021 season ends in two weeks.
The most important pieces of the franchise are all under contract for at least two more seasons beyond this lost one.
Carroll is under contract to coach the Seahawks and remain their executive vice president in charge of football operations and matters through the 2025 season. If he fulfills his contract Carroll will be the oldest coach in NFL history, past his 74th birthday. That’s the result of the contract extension team chair Jody Allen gave last year to the franchise’s winningest coach and only one to win a Super Bowl for Seattle. His contract is believed to be worth above the $11 million per year he had in his previous deal, which was to have expired after this season.
Last offseason, Allen gave general manager John Schneider an extension through the 2027 draft.
Carroll and Schneider have been joined contractually and philosophically since Jody Allen’s brother, the late Paul Allen, hired Carroll to run the Seahawks in January 2010. Allen and Carroll then hired Schneider from the Green Bay Packers’ front office to be a first-time general manager.
Wilson, the $140 million franchise cornerstone, is under contract through the 2023 season. This season was his first missing games because of injury in his 10-year career. The 33-year-old quarterback has not looked like the elite thrower, decision-maker and escape artist since — and often early this season before — his surgery Oct. 8 to repair the middle finger of his throwing hand.
Jody Allen met with Carroll and Schneider last month for what the coach termed a “normal,” midseason meeting about the team. Allen is the Seahawks chair, chair of Vulcan, Inc., and trustee of the Paul G. Allen trust. She attends Seahawks home games and many road games, watching from a suite.
When she is not at road games the team’s vice chair, Bert Kolde, is.
In November, Carroll emphasized how normal that meeting with Allen was — that it was not at all out of the ordinary or a reaction to the team being in last place past the midpoint of this season.
Asked what he’d heard from Allen, Carroll said: ”We communicate. She really communicates a lot through John, for the most part. Send messages once in while, and talk once in a while. “We had our middle-of-the-year meeting, like we always do. Pretty normal.
“It is normal.”
Allen so far has given no indications she wants anything other than what she’s kept since her brother’s death in October 2018: status quo atop the Seahawks. In fact, she has given no indications about anything about the Seahawks.
She has for the last couple months been presiding over the ouster of the leaders of the Portland Trail Blazers, the National Basketball Association team of which she is also chair. Trail Blazers general manager Neil Olshey was fired this month after a workplace investigation about allegedly violating the team’s code of conduct and creating a toxic work environment. Shortly after the investigation of Olshey began the Trail Blazers’ president and CEO resigned, Chris McGowan.
This story was originally published December 27, 2021 at 11:21 AM.
