After a prolonged search, the Las Vegas Raiders have their new head coach in Pete Carroll. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the news that the team has hired the former Seattle Seahawks head coach.
It’s been well-reported that Ben Johnson was the team’s top choice so once he joined up with the Chicago Bears, the Raiders pivoted to Carroll. He’s far from the worst pivot. Carroll has a 170-120 record in 18 years as an NFL head coach and that’s not even mentioning his dominance in college with USC.
The Raiders are now going to go from having the least experienced head coach in the NFL to possibly the most experienced. While Carroll is a Super Bowl winner, he will be the oldest head coach in NFL history once he coaches his first game in Las Vegas.
Carroll now joins new general manager John Spytek, who officially signed his contract with the Raiders on Thursday night. The team now has an experienced head coach to pair with a first-time general manager. The only problem with this hire is that Carroll is not a long-term solution. Starting a new job already being the oldest head coach in NFL history is certainly a choice but Carroll has been eager to get back into coaching. Now he’ll be tasked with turning around one of the most dysfunctional franchises in the league.
Pete Carroll’s Contract Details
It’s clear that the Raiders don’t expect Carroll to be leading the team for a long time based on some of the contract details. According to Schefter, Las Vegas is giving Carroll a three-year contract with a fourth-year team option. That means that after three seasons, the Raiders can choose to move on from Carroll or bring him back.
This could be a situation where the team wants him to help set the culture and perhaps groom an eventual successor. That has rarely worked in the NFL. The last team to have a succession plan for their head coach was the New England Patriots, who had Jerod Mayo be Bill Belichick’s successor. He was fired after just one season.
Can Carroll Be the One to Turn the Raiders Around?
This will almost certainly be Carroll’s last head coaching job so it’s interesting that he’d pick the Raiders. The team hasn’t won a playoff game since 2002 and has been one of the worst franchises in the NFL for two decades.
The Raiders don’t have a quarterback and need a lot of work on the roster. However, Carroll has proven he can turn a franchise around quickly. The Seahawks were 9-23 in the two seasons before Carroll took over and he led them to the playoffs in his first season.
Spytek is also a very promising general manager so he may be able to get the roster in a better spot quickly. With this being a weak pool of candidates at head coach, Carroll is the best the Raiders could do after Johnson, Mike Vrabel and Liam Coen were taken off the market. The AFC West now has four potential Hall of Famers as head coaches.
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Pete Carroll’s Raiders Contract Has Eye-Opening Wrinkle