This is easily the most shocking firing to date. The Seattle Seahawks have relieved head coach Pete Carroll of his coaching duties and moved him into an advisory role…even though he said he would be coaching again next season a few days ago.
Something doesn’t seem right about this move.
Despite saying he would be back next season and he still had more to give as the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, Pete Carroll has been relieved of his coaching duties by the Seahawks management and has been moved into an advisory role in the Seahawks front office. And, even though this really isn’t the world’s worst move, I think there’s something far fishier going on behind the scenes.
This is the craziest story of the coaching carousel to date. Well, at least on the NFL level.
I’m not even going to get into Nick Saban actually retiring from Alabama on a random Wednesday after 17 years, 6 National Championships, 9 SEC championships, 13 Bowl wins, and a 206-29 record with the Crimson Tide, so I’ll just jump straight into the massive NFL news of the day: Pete Carroll is out as the Seahawks head coach.
Yes, despite having a winning season at 9-8 and making the playoffs last season, the Seahawks decided now was the right time to move on from the greatest coach in the history of their franchise.
And, I can see why they thought now was the best time as Pete Carroll not only has achieved pretty much everything can for the Seahawks organization with his 137-89-1 record with the team, 5 NFC West division titles, 2 NFC crowns, obviously 2 Super Bowl appearances, the Super Bowl XLVII victory over the Broncos, and being the head coach in charge of the legendary “Legion of Boom” defense (2011-2018), but he also is the oldest coach in the NFL at 72 years old.
Yes, Pete Carroll, despite having the energy reserves of a crackhead (and I mean that in the nicest and most flattering way possible), is actually 7 months OLDER than Bill Belichick (who you would be forgiven in thinking was the oldest head coach in the NFL) as Carroll was born September 15th, 1951, and Belichick was born April 16th, 1952.
Anyway, even though Pete Carroll himself said, “I plan to be coaching this team…I’m not worn out. I’m not tired. I’m not any of that stuff. I need to do a better job and I need to help my coaches more and we need to do a better job of coaching, and there’s a lot of area for improvement,” to a local Seattle radio station, there must have been a late night meeting between Carroll, GM John Schneider, and the Seahawks ownership group as they all unanimously concluded that Carroll needed to step down and allow a newer generation of coaches to take the reins.
Or at least that’s the story Carroll painted in his departure press conference this afternoon, “I competed pretty hard to be the coach, just so you know…Following season-ending meetings with ownership … it’s clear, and for a variety of reasons, we mutually agreed to take a new course.”
Now, I’m not saying this didn’t happen or that Pete Carroll secretly wanted out of the Seahawks organization all along, but rather I think this did happen. And the first sentence of the quote I just listed above is the most important thing to take away from this situation. In my opinion, Pete Carroll was essentially forced out of the Seahawks coaching role and moved into a more “senior” (aka: out of the way) advisory position.
Seeing how Pete Carroll was for his entire tenure with the Seahawks and how adamant he was that he wanted to stay on as the coach of the team for not only the interviews and press conferences before his transition, but also DURING the farewell press conference, I think GM John Schneider and owner Jody Allen thought that they could get a younger (and perhaps more moldable) coach to bring up this new generation of Seahawks players.
And, unlike most old, successful coaches being shown the door by their organizations, the Seahawks were far from a dysfunctional organization. In truth, the Seahawks are actually building up and looking at challenging for the NFC West and perhaps NFC crown in the near future with all of the young and talented players coming up through the ranks.
And I personally believe that John Schneider and Jody Allen think they can turn this team into contenders again…but couldn’t with Pete Carroll’s aging coaching philosophies and presence on the sidelines.
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