From the moment Pete Carroll was hired as the Las Vegas Raiders' head coach, and with a need at quarterback, it's been easy to make the tie. The bigger question was if Russell Wilson would be willing to reunite with Carroll after Wilson's messy exit from the Seattle Seahawks.
The Raiders made a strong play to try to get Matthew Stafford, but he was never very likely to leave the Los Angeles Rams. The Athletic subsequently reported the Raiders are not "super high" on other free agent quarterbacks, namely Sam Darnold, but members of the coaching staff prefer adding a veteran over rolling the dice with a rookie.
So the Raiders have a quarterback quandary and a contradiction at the same time. Signing a veteran they do like enough and drafting someone after the first round seems like a viable possibility, if not a strong likelihood.
Russell Wilson-Pete Carroll Raiders' reunion seems to truly be in play
Zack Rosenblatt of The Athletic took a look at the NFL quarterback landscape, with predictions for six teams he considers "open for business."
The Raiders are of course one of those teams, and Rosenblatt went the veteran and rookie double-dip route with Wilson and Quinn Ewers.
"Most signs point toward the Raiders prioritizing proven veterans over unproven rookies, or even question marks like Fields or Darnold. Wilson is probably the next-best veteran on the market after Rodgers, and there are a lot of fun storylines that would come with him going to Las Vegas: He’d reunite with coach Pete Carroll and join forces with Brady, who Wilson lost to in Super Bowl XLIX."
The idea Wilson is behind Aaron Rodgers in the pecking order of free agent quarterbacks is interesting, though somewhat inconsequential. The differentiators for the Raiders could (should?) be Wilson's history with Carroll, and Wilson not bringing all the extra stuff with him that Rodgers does.
Matthew Berry of NBC Sports and Fantasy Life is of course not a typical go-to reporter/insider. But he does spend time on the ground at the NFL Combine every year, and subsequently offers a roundup of stuff he heard at the event.
Among the 25 most interesting things he heard at the 2025 NFL Combine, Berry had a note about a Wilson-Carroll reunion. Persistent indications the Steelers would prefer to keep Justin Fields, if they keep one of their two free agent signal callers, pushes Wilson toward being available.
"Which means Russell Wilson is on the move, and I heard that there’s something to the Pete Carroll – Russell Wilson reunion in Las Vegas rumors. I heard there have even been conversations and the thought process is, some version of: “Hey, we both got fired in Seattle, we were better together than apart, let’s figure out a way past our differences and run it back,” or some such. It makes a lot of sense on a lot of levels."
The 36-year old Wilson is obviously not the quarterback he once was. But he is better than anyone the Raiders have had under center since Derek Carr, and he still carries an air of credibility at the position the Raiders have lacked.
As long as Wilson's willing to mentor a young quarterback for a year or two, a reunion with Carroll makes a ton of sense and now there's some buzz to back up that sentiment,