The Las Vegas Raiders' issues were abundant during the 2025 NFL season, the most colossal of which was the play of the offensive line. Whereas several coaches got the ax mid-season for not meeting expectations, head coach Pete Carroll let his son, Brennan, run things into the ground.
Fans had apprehension about this hiring when it happened, as they feared nepotism had crept into the building in Las Vegas. Raider Nation held out hope that Brennan Carroll had actually earned his job, but it quickly became clear that it was given to him.
Jumbling the interior offensive line for no real reason was Brennan Carroll's first mistake, and as a result, fans got a gut feeling that something was wrong with the process in Las Vegas. His second, and more fatal flaw, was that he couldn't admit he was wrong, and the whole offense suffered for it.
Ashton Jeanty's rookie season was derailed by poor blocking, and Geno Smith, for all of his issues, was also hung out to dry plenty of times, too. The offense was at the whim of a group that, although talented, was led by a coach who was "not a detail-oriented guy," according to Ted Nguyen.
New intel explains how much of a mess Brennan Carroll was for Raiders
While that seems like a pretty brutal takedown of the job that Brennan Carroll did as the offensive line coach and run game coordinator for the Raiders, this is not anything that the fan base didn't already know.
But Raiders fans underestimated just how bad things actually were.
In a brilliant exposé written by ESPN's Kalyn Kahler and Ryan McFadden, it was revealed just what a train wreck the offensive line was under Brennan Carroll. The reputation that he had within Raider Nation wasn't even a fraction as bad as the way he was perceived by those close to the situation.
According to Kahler and McFadden, star left tackle Kolton Miller acknowledged that guys were playing out of their natural positions. Although he neglected to blame Carroll, several other sources lambasted Brennan Carroll to ESPN.
"An agent of a Raiders offensive lineman said that his client told him the position group met multiple times on their own with Smith and Jeanty, and specifically without coaches, so the quarterback and running back could talk to them about how they wanted the offensive line to create blocks.
"It was that bad," the agent told ESPN. "They were meeting on their own and trying to figure it out together, which I have never heard of in my history of working in this league."
"There is some sort of nepotism going on," a fourth agent of a Raiders player said.
"The agent also said his client said that Brennan Carroll rushed players through individual drills at practice and didn't teach them what they were trying to achieve in specific drills.
Okay, there is a lot to unpack here. First of all, it says a lot about how poor a job Carroll was doing that players felt inclined to meet without him. While this was hardly a coup, it seems like a clear indication that they felt Carroll wasn't adept enough to help them out.
For agents to acknowledge the unprecedented nature of this situation is bad. It's even worse that the word nepotism was said directly, and that there are concrete examples of his ineptitude being spread throughout the landscape.
DJ Glaze and Charles Grant confirmed that the offensive line had meetings with Smith and Jeanty without coaches present, but they insisted that they were to develop chemistry with each other, as there was only so much they could do with their coaches during the day.
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Glaze did concede some less flattering things about how Carroll and the staff conducted their business.
"Glaze told ESPN there were times when the unit didn't know who was starting until the Saturday before a game because the coaching staff wanted to see how the competition played out during the week and whether a player would be available due to injury.
"This offensive line coach is the biggest issue with this team," said the agent of a Raiders offensive lineman in December. "Everybody knows, and nobody talks about it because it's Pete's son. Everyone talks about it behind the scenes; no one talks about it publicly."
"Just like anything, you know where issues are," a team source said. "Guys stay pretty professional. Some stuff is like an elephant in the room, but guys keep a poker face [and] keep on working."
Of course, players did not implicate their coach directly. But if agents are saying these things, it's not a stretch to believe that these players would be their source of information, as agents aren't in the building every day.
Things were so dysfunctional that Jackson Powers-Johnson was even thought to be a trade candidate ahead of the deadline. Brennan Carroll jerked him around and moved him to guard for no reason, and according to ESPN, other executives saw this and tried to pounce.
"An executive for another NFL club said his team was interested in trading for Powers-Johnson, a second-year player who was drafted by the previous regime. He wondered why the Raiders coaching staff wasn't playing the young player with potential at center and had moved him to guard. When his club's trade efforts were rejected, the executive said it was clear to him that Vegas' coaching staff and front office were on different pages.
"Spytek knows that he has a pretty young, talented interior lineman," the executive said. "They are not where they want to be in that position group, but they didn't come close to maximizing it. They actually have some good young players, and they should have been more functional."
What more is there to say that Kahler and McFadden didn't cover? Raider Nation knew that Brennan Carroll was a bad hire when they saw it. They could feel it in their bones. They were fully convinced of it as early as when Powers-Johnson was initially slid to guard in training camp.
To credit ourselves and the fan base, we never gave Carroll the benefit of the doubt. We were harsh about the decisions that he made because he took an average unit and made it the worst in the league. It didn't take a genius to see that something was wrong, and that something was Carroll.
Fans knew things were bad. Perhaps really bad. But they couldn't have fathomed the dysfunction until Kahler and McFadden exposed it. Bravo to them for doing so, and congrats to Raider Nation for being right all along. They just didn't know how right they were.