With a 2-10 current mark looking very likely to yield at best a 3-14 final record, Pete Carroll's first year as the Las Vegas Raiders' head coach is not going well at all. A Week 1 win over the current AFC No. 1 seed, the New England Patriots, feels like a lifetime ago and was clearly a flash in the pan.
The ultimate question is whether Carroll's tenure only lasts one season, either via him being fired or him choosing to step aside or retire. If he does stick around, some concessions regarding what his coaching staff looks like should come as a requirement to remaining employed.
If there were a way for Carroll not to get a second season as head coach, ideally with a good candidate lined up to replace him, Raider Nation would endorse it. A "mutual parting of ways" would be a soft landing and spare Carroll the indignity of being fired.
But what if there were another way for Carroll to be gone in a fashion that doesn't land as harshly as his being fired?
Could the Raiders have a fresh way to part ways with Pete Carroll?
On Wednesday's edition of ESPN'sThe Pat McAfee Show, the host and his sidekicks were talking about the Pittsburgh Steelers and head coach Mike Tomlin with former NFL defensive lineman and current CBS analyst JJ Watt.
The new tentacle of that topic is former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger suggesting thatTomlin should take the Penn State head football coach opening if he leaves the Steelers, which McAfee brought up.
Watt made the obvious counterpoint, questioning why an NFL head coach would want to be a college head coach unless it were their only option. McAfee then turned to sidekick Boston Connor, asking him to publicly name the candidate he apparently "just thought of" who could be "good at Penn State."
"I mean, it just feels as though everything's going south in Vegas, and that Pete Carroll's gonna get fired, and he would be perfect at Penn State," Connor said.
Penn State's search for James Franklin's replacement isn't going great, with BYU head coach Kalani Sitake notably turning them down. The rest of their list of potential candidates is otherwise quickly dwindling.
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Franklin is also flipping some Penn State recruiting commits to join him at his new spot, Virginia Tech, which only adds to the discontent. Maybe Penn State would consider pursuing Carroll and making him an "offer he can't refuse" to return to college coaching, where he had plenty of success at USC.
They'd likely have to wait for him to finish his season with the Raiders, which would not be ideal with the current recruiting and coaching carousel calendar at the college level. But if recruits knew Carroll was coming, and potential assistant coaches were lined up, that could sweeten the deal.
Or maybe Carroll would leave the Raiders for Penn State before the season ended, with an understanding for why he was doing it and no sour grapes between the two sides. The coaching world is crazy right now, and nothing can be counted out.
Carroll would get his next job quickly, and any further financial obligation the Raiders would have to him would be minimized, if not completely eliminated. Although that aspect doesn't matter much to the fan base, it does to Mark Davis, who has made a habit of paying coaches not to coach.
It's all hypothetical right now, of course. But Carroll making a ballyhooed return to college, and the Raiders being able to part ways as painlessly as possible, would be a huge win for both sides. Maybe Carroll could also end his career on a higher note than he is currently in Las Vegas.