Field Gulls
In very unsurprising news, Pete Carroll’s Las Vegas Raiders head coaching days are over.
The former Seattle Seahawks head coach has been “relieved of his duties” following a brutal 3-14 campaign, the second-worst season by win percentage since the Raiders joined the NFL from the AFL. On the plus side, the Raiders have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, but that clearly wasn’t the goal at the start of the season.
It’s been 12 seasons since Carroll’s glorious Super Bowl triumph with the Seahawks, and he’s far removed from those days more than just chronologically. Many of the issues that plagued Carroll toward the end of his Seahawks tenure continued in Vegas, and some new problems emerged. The Raiders were dead last in rushing, dead last in scoring (including two shutouts), last in total offensive yards, last in third down defense, one of the worst tackling units in the league, one of the worst red zone and red zone defenses, and one of the worst at protecting the quarterback. Offensive line play was a massive problem, and the decision to hire his son Brennan Carroll as OL coach and run game coordinator undoubtedly raised eyebrows. There was truly almost nothing the Raiders did well other than lose. Amazingly, the one area where Carroll really evolved was 4th down decision making.
Unlike in Seattle, where Carroll held front office powers, he did not have those same capabilities in Las Vegas, but it looks as if general manager John Spytek will stay on board. The Raiders did predictably have a few former Seahawks players with Carroll ties, including Jamal Adams (who didn’t miss a game this season), Stone Forsythe (who became the starting left tackle after Kolton Miller’s injury), Tyler Lockett (brought in midseason after starting with the Tennessee Titans), and of course there was the Geno Smith trade. Smith led the league in interceptions despite missing two games, threw just 19 touchdown passes, and struggled with accuracy and sack avoidance while in an offense that looked not the slightest bit coherent.
One of the unusual aspects of this season was Carroll moving on from assistants midseason. Offensive coordinator Chip Kelly and special teams coordinator Tom McMahon were both fired, something Carroll had never been a part of in any of his other seasons as a coach. Carroll’s worst season prior to this year was 6-10 with the New York Jets in 1994, which also ended in his firing, but they were 6-5 before losing out. Carroll has never coached a team as bad and as non-competitive as Las Vegas.
Once again, the search for the next great Raiders head coach is on, and whoever is hired in 2026 will be Vegas’ fifth non-interim head coach in six seasons. The Raiders have seemingly had their version of “Tom Flores hired by the Seahawks” except they made sure Carroll didn’t get three seasons.
So when the Seahawks face the Raiders in 2026 down in Las Vegas, there will definitely...
