The Las Vegas Raiders and their fanbase have moved on from Pete Carroll. After all, he spent just one year with the franchise, an ill-fated one, at that, and ruffled more than his share of feathers in the 11 months or so that he was at the helm of the Silver and Black.
And even though Raider Nation is just excited now about the pairing of John Spytek and Klint Kubiak, as well as the massive free agency haul that just came to Las Vegas, it was a bit weird to hear nothing from Carroll. Most expected the veteran coach to ride off into the sunset, but not full-on radio silence.
Well, in typical Carroll fashion, he broke his silence to talk about Geno Smith. ESPN's Rich Cimini spoke to Carroll in the aftermath of Smith being traded to the New York Jets, and the Raiders' former coach talked about what went wrong during the fateful 2025 NFL season.
It's safe to say that Carroll conveniently left a few things out and threw Spytek under the bus.
Pete Carroll didn't paint the full picture of Raiders' failed 2025 season
When it came to Smith, of course, Carroll took the blame, because he'd rather look bad than his golden boy at quarterback. Carroll knows that he is responsible for Smith coming to Las Vegas in the first place, so he can't worm his way out of that one and blame it on Spytek.
"We should've coached him better," Carroll said about Smith. "He's a phenomenal quarterback, he really is. He had a fantastic offseason and preseason with us, and he comes out in the first game, has a great first game. It was all fitting. It was exactly the right time for us. Then we just faltered and faltered. We didn't do well enough, coaching."
Carroll continued to talk about his own personal shortcomings when it came to Smith.
"We should've had him better prepared for the things that happened, and that wouldn't have happened. I take a lot of responsibility in that. We didn't prepare him well enough in the offseason even though he looked great and we felt we had everything lined up. It was very, very disappointing for us both," Carroll said. "He got off to such a miserable start, and it wasn't just him. It was the whole thing. We just didn't function well early on, and he got behind the eight ball right from the beginning. Everybody wanted to blame him for it, and he took it and took it and took it, and then they captured him -- an exchange or whatever. He just didn't get to reap the benefits of our relationship."
Sure, Pete. Live your truth, I suppose. Call Smith making obscene gestures to home fans "an exchange."
The fact of the matter is that, no, Carroll did not prepare Smith, or anybody on the Raiders, for that matter, well enough for the season. The team peaked early, and endless valleys followed. They never ascended again, in fact.
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However, seemingly, when it came to matters of the rest of the team, in particular the offensive line, Carroll firmly threw Spytek under the bus. Carroll conveniently leaves out the fact, however, that his own son was the one coaching the league's worst unit, but was above punishment or criticism.
"We got killed, we got killed," Carroll said of the offensive line. "Our offensive guys up front, from the last couple of years, we got murdered. We needed to upgrade that more than we did. It didn't happen in the draft, and it didn't happen in the offseason.
"We didn't go for it in the offseason. We needed to buy a new line to give the guys a chance to at least be more competitive. The only reason you get sacked that much is because you try to throw it too much. The whole thing didn't quite work out, and that's why you saw a change and all that."
Honestly, fans just have to laugh at this.
One could look at this as admirable, the fact that Carroll sticks by his family and simply refuses to acknowledge any of their wrongdoing in public. But in reality, Carroll, whether consciously or not, just played favorites with his former Seattle Seahawks and nepotistic family hires.
Chip Kelly was fired for being inept. Tom McMahon got the axe for not doing his job. But Brennan Carroll, coordinator of the league's worst rushing attack and coach of the offensive line that gave up the most sacks in the NFL, is above any fault?
Yeah, right.
The fact that Carroll is throwing Spytek under the bus for how the offensive line performed is just laughable. Not only did he extend Kolton Miller before the season to keep him happy, but he also utilized two third-round picks on a guard and a swing tackle, and brought in an $11 million veteran.
It is not Spytek's fault that former Seahawk Stone Forysthe, unequivocally the worst offensive tackle in the league last season, was thrown into the lineup for Miller instead of Charles Grant and never improved. It's not Spytek's fault that Jackson Powers-Johnson's abilities weren't maximized.
Brennan Carroll and Chip Kelly decided to jumble around a perfectly good, league-average unit and waste an entire year of everybody's prime. And when it didn't work, they stuck to their guns and didn't back down in the face of constant failure. But only Kelly lost his job. I wonder why.
Not to mention the fact that Las Vegas did go for it in the offseason. They traded a third-round pick for Carroll's hand-picked veteran quarterback and took a running back at No. 6 overall. Plus, the young pieces on the offensive line actually looked good when Carroll finally gave them a chance.
It's all still so frustrating. But I digress.
This brief emergence from the shadows served as a perfect encapsulation of Carroll and the reason that he didn't work out with the Raiders. He never even tried to be on the same page as Spytek, wouldn't hold everyone to the same standard, and hitched his wagon to Geno Smith and his sons.
Part of me just wishes Carroll hadn't broken his silence, and fans didn't have to hear another round of lame excuses for why Las Vegas was the NFL's worst team in 2025. But this is a good reminder of just how far the Raiders have already come in the short while since his firing.