Pete Carroll out as Seahawks coach, Jody Allen announces. Immediate speculation who’s next
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Seahawks’ Pete Carroll Era Ends
After 14 seasons of the most sustained success in Seahawks history, with a legacy of his players loving him and his unorthodox, personal approach, Pete Carroll is out as Seattle’s coach.
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After 14 seasons of the most sustained success in Seahawks history, with a legacy of his players loving him and his unorthodox, personal approach, Pete Carroll is out as Seattle’s coach.
The team announced that Wednesday morning with a statement from franchise chair Jody Allen.
“After thoughtful meetings and careful consideration for the best interest of the franchise, we have amicably agreed with Pete Carroll that his role will evolve from Head Coach to remain with the organization as an advisor,” Allen’s statement said of the 72-year-old coach, the only one to win a Super Bowl for the Seahawks.
Allen’s late brother Paul, then the Seahawks’ owner, hired Carroll from USC to Seattle in January 2010.
With his quarterback and team captain Geno Smith in the first row and co-captain Bobby Wagner in the second row of a packed main auditorium at a 1 p.m. press conference Wednesday at team headquarters, Carroll made it clear this exit now was not his decision.
“I competed hard to be the coach, just so you know,” Carroll said of his meetings this week with Jody Allen.
Asked twice what the differences were between his vision for the team and Allen’s, Carroll said he was not detailing that. Not publicly, anyway.
He did say this about the Seahawks middling at 9-8 each of the last two seasons, with their defense among the league’s worst both years despite massive changes in scheme and philosophy on that side of the ball: “We lost our edge, really, the edge to be great, running the football and playing defense.”
The best, most-accomplished coach in Seahawks history said when he spoke to his players for what is now the last time as a team, on Monday, he did not know he wasn’t going to be leading them for the 2024 season.
A possible, familiar replacement
Speculation immediately is centering around Dan Quinn to be the Seahawks’ next coach. The successful defensive coordinator of the NFC East-champion Dallas Cowboys was a Super Bowl defensive coordinator for Carroll in Seattle.
Quinn, 53, was the Seahawks’ defensive line coach in 2010, Carroll’s first season running the team. He became Carroll’s Seahawks defensive coordinator in 2013, Seattle’s Super Bowl-winning season, and ‘14. Quinn’s 2013 Seahawks defense led the NFL in fewest points allowed, fewest yards allowed and takeaways. Seattle became the first team since the 1985 Chicago Bears to do all that, and the Seahawks’ won their only Super Bowl title that season.
Quinn left Seattle’s second consecutive Super Bowl season of 2014 to become a first-time head coach with the Atlanta Falcons from 2015-20. In his second season there Quinn led Atlanta to the Super Bowl, where the Falcons blew a 21-3 lead and lost to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots. After the Falcons fired him, Dallas hired him to be its defensive coordinator before the 2021 seasons. He designed one of the NFL’s best, most aggressive defenses with the Cowboys.
In many ways, Quinn would be a continuation of Carroll’s ways, particularly on defense and vibe.
If Allen and Bert Kolde, her right-hand man with Vulcan, Inc., the entity Paul Allen created to operate the Seahawks decades ago, wanted a continuation of Carroll’s way they could and probably would have kept Carroll. He was under contract through the 2024 season, with an option to coach Seattle through 2025.
Former San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh just finished coaching Michigan to a 15-0 season and the national championship with a win over the Washington Huskies Monday night in Houston. Michigan people have been nervous for weeks Harbaugh hasn’t signed a contract extension the Wolverines have offered him, reportedly for 10 years at $12.5 million per year.
On Thursday, the buy-out cost to Harbaugh to buy out his contract to Michigan drops from $2.25 million to just $1.5 million, per Michigan Live.
Pete Carroll’s end
Carroll went 137-89-1 in the regular season and 10-9 in 19 postseason games as the Seahawks’ coach and top, final football authority from 2010-23. That’s the most coaching wins in franchise history.
The removal of Carroll as coach comes three days after the Seahawks ended their season 9-8 for the second consecutive year. They missed the playoffs this season for the third time in 12 years under Carroll.
Most galling, and damning, for the defense-first coach, ex-defensive backs coach and defensive coordinator: His Seattle defense was 30th in the NFL in run defense for the second consecutive season. And that was after he and the team spent up to $124 million in changes and new contacts on the defense. That included using a generational draft choice, fifth overall last spring, on defense: cornerback Devon Witherspoon, who made the Pro Bowl in his rookie season.
Carroll said Sunday following Seattle’s win at Arizona but Green Bay’s win over Chicago that eliminated the Seahawks from the playoffs that he wanted to coach the team next season, and that he expected to.
“I do,” Carroll said Sunday, “at this time.”
That “at this time” was in deference to the fact he’d yet to speak with Allen in his annual end-of-the-season assessment of the team.
Between now and then, he did. And that’s when Allen and Carroll decided the most successful coaching run in Seahawks history was over.
“Pete is the winningest coach in Seahawks history, brought the city its first Super Bowl title, and created a tremendous impact over the past 14 years on the field and in the community,” Allen wrote in her statement through the team Wednesday. “His expertise in leadership and building a championship culture will continue as an integral part of our organization moving forward.
“Pete will always be a beloved member of the Seahawks family.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2024 at 11:39 AM.
