Pete Carroll was nobody's No. 1 choice. The Las Vegas Raiders clearly wanted hotshot coordinator Ben Johnson last offseason, as did the fan base. The Raiders running out of options is what led Carroll to Las Vegas, and things went about as well as fans' gut feelings told them they would.
After a 3-14 campaign during the 2025 NFL season, the Raiders parted ways with the veteran coach on Monday. Not only was this an appropriate punishment for the year that Carroll and his team put together, but his firing is the best thing for the organization moving forward.
Convincing Raider Nation that they finished with just 3 wins after a season-opening triumph on the road against the New England Patriots would have been hard to do at the time, as the fan base has a knack for convincing themselves that each coach and quarterback is the answer.
But Carroll's lack of success didn't come out of nowhere. We just turned a blind eye to it.
Pete Carroll's undying loyalty ultimately did him in with the Raiders
Seahawks writer Lee Vowell's words ended up being prophetic. In July, we spoke with Vowell, site expert at FanSided's 12th Man Rising, and he warned Raiders fans that Carroll's undying loyalty can actually be a bad thing.
"Carroll's biggest weakness as a coach is oddly the same thing that makes him a good person: He stays too loyal," Vowell wrote. "He keeps his coordinators too long, even if they are clearly not working out, and he is reticent to change his defensive scheme, even if opposing offenses have adjusted to what he is doing."
While the part about keeping his coordinators didn't exactly hold true, the sentiment of what Vowell said remains: Carroll just couldn't get rid of his guys. Former Seahawks and those closely associated with Carroll frequently got a pass or a longer leash, whereas others didn't.
Brennan Carroll is the foremost example of this, as the Raiders' offensive line was the worst in the league, and the run game also ranked 32nd by a country mile. Even worse than last year. But because of his last name, Las Vegas' offensive line coach and run game coordinator was above punishment.
The Athletic's Ted Nguyen even reported that several people in the building were puzzled by the hiring of Brennan Carroll, as he didn't strike them as a "detail-oriented guy." It's painful to know that people in the building saw the team's failure coming in some ways, but were powerless.
Geno Smith also struggled throughout the year, and despite having two other viable backups, Carroll never once considered sitting the veteran signal-caller. Carroll pointed the finger at everyone else and dug his heels in about Smith, but he proved to be wrong. It almost seemed like he was glad to be.
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Other former Seahawks like Stone Forsythe and Kyu Blu Kelly would have been benched by any other team, given their continued abysmal showings. But Carroll kept giving them chances, hoping that they would one day prove the veteran coach right. They didn't. And Carroll looks worse for it.
Tyler Lockett never should have been signed in the first place, but Carroll clearly got in John Spytek's ear about bringing another old friend to Las Vegas. He did this at the expense of several young wideouts, and Carroll didn't learn his lesson from his other failed Seahawks additions.
Making decisions based on connections wasn't the only place that Carroll went wrong, however. He and his son were intent on switching around the offensive line, which proved to be a failed endeavor, and the fan base knew it all along. But Carroll never backed down, and the unit never got better.
Reports also piled in about him influencing Chip Kelly's offense too much, and then Carroll fired him for poor performance. Statistics also showed that Patrick Graham's defense was heavily influenced by Carroll's Cover 3 scheme, which didn't make things better, either.
Carroll got a taste of control when Spytek agreed to trade for Smith, and the 74-year-old coach clearly had no issues taking advantage of a first-time general manager to hook up his old buddies and players in an attempt to move his Seahawks clique to the desert.
Vowell warned Raider Nation that loyalty may cloud Pete Carroll's vision in Las Vegas. But it was actually something more sinister: Pride. As they say, pride comes before destruction. And Carroll's loyalty to the past and his inability to admit that he was wrong left Las Vegas demolished.
Hopefully, Tom Brady and John Spytek can pick up the pieces and start building something special in the wake of Carroll's disaster.