Graney: Pete Carroll is exactly what the Raiders need right now
It’s the right time and place for Pete Carroll and the Raiders.
The team needs stability. It needs direction. It needs someone as its coach with a resume of success. Someone who knows how to build a winner. Someone who knows what a championship team looks like. Who wears a Super Bowl ring.
Carroll is every bit as good an option as the Raiders could have hoped for once Ben Johnson chose the Bears.
But a backup plan can also work. It has many places. It can with Carroll, who agreed to a three-year deal with a team option for a fourth year.
He is a huge upgrade from what we have seen recently along the sidelines. Josh McDaniels and Antonio Pierce just weren’t cut out to be head coaches. Carroll has been for decades, including 14 years with the Seahawks.
“He is an instant jolt to any organization, just with his energy,” said Matt Calkins, sports columnist for the Seattle Times. “Every player who was with him would say that. Maybe guys who had been there for 10 years tired of the rah-rah stuff, but never to a point they didn’t like him or disrespect him.
“When Pete was there and players came to Seattle, they would say, ‘I’ve never seen this kind of culture before. This is different than everywhere I’ve been.’ He engages with players like few coaches do.”
Age an issue?
Age will be the question of many. It’s a fair point. Carroll turns 74 in September. He also looks and acts like someone 20 years younger.
Maybe he wants to prove something for how things ended (sourly) in Seattle. Maybe he doesn’t feel a need to — he’s one of three coaches to win a title in the NFL and college — and just wants back in. Whatever the reason, he’s a good fit for where the Raiders exist right now, which is far from a playoff team or contender in the AFC West.
“You think about Vin Scully, and he never lost a beat,” Calkins said. “I think some minds are just built that way. Pete Carroll who was fired in Seattle at age 72 was no different than the Pete Carroll I saw at USC years ago. I saw no signs of him slowing down.”
Now the challenging part. Things didn’t end well in Seattle for Carroll, whose last three teams went 25-26.
The most alarming part was how bad they were defensively. Carroll’s expertise is on that side of the ball. He built one of this generation’s best defenses in Seattle. We’ll have to see now how it all translates to the Raiders. We’ll have to see if he still has it in him.
This is where it becomes imperative Carroll and new Raiders general manager John Spytek work well together. There is a roster to construct. There are several holes to upgrade. There is an obvious issue at quarterback.
Spytek as a first-time general manager needs to lean on Carroll’s experience. The two and minority owner Tom Brady have questions to answer and several moves to make. There is cap space to work with. They just have to make the correct decisions, is all.
A good fit
So there you have it. The Raiders chose to go opposite of Johnson with their second choice. Carroll’s background and personality should draw immediate respect inside the locker room. It should draw the interest of free agents. Guys will buy into his message.
Carroll wanted this job. Badly. Now, he must make it work. It won’t be easy. He has built winners before. This will be one of his toughest tasks doing so. But it won’t be for a lack of desire.
“I think he just wakes up and wants to coach and put those 16-hour days in,” Calkins said. “I really think this is a guy who’s competitive and just loves every aspect of it. I think he has just been bored the last couple years. That’s what gets his juices going. Coaching. He wants to do it as long as possible.”
It’s the right time and place for Pete Carroll and the Raiders.
It’s a good fit. Might even turn out to be the best one.
Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.
