Pete Carroll’s career arc has always been anything but conventional, and his latest chapter in Las Vegas is off to a start he’s never experienced before – not even during the early rebuilding days in Seattle. After 14 seasons leading the Seahawks, including a Super Bowl win and multiple playoff runs, Carroll was asked to step aside.
He wasn’t fired in the traditional sense, but it was clear the front office wanted a different direction – one Carroll didn’t seem interested in taking. Now, just a year removed from roaming the sidelines at Lumen Field, Carroll is back in the NFL, this time as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders.
But through five weeks, the results haven’t just been disappointing – they’ve been historically bad by Carroll’s standards.
After a demoralizing Week 5 loss to the Indianapolis Colts – and we’re talking 40-3 third-quarter kind of bad – the Raiders dropped to 1-4 on the season. That’s a start Carroll never witnessed in Seattle, even during the franchise reset that began in 2010.
Those Seahawks teams, with rosters in flux and quarterbacks on one-year auditions, still managed to scrape together better starts. So the looming question is: can Carroll, now 72 and stripped of roster control, find a way to turn things around with this Raiders squad?
Las Vegas, for its part, brought in several familiar faces from Carroll’s Seahawks years in hopes of replicating some of that Pacific Northwest magic. Chief among them: quarterback Geno Smith.
Carroll was a big believer in Smith’s resurgence, having supported him through two years as Seattle’s starter. Now reunited under the Las Vegas sun, things have not gone to plan.
Smith, simply put, hasn’t held up his end of the bargain. He’s been reckless with the football, especially in high-leverage moments.
Fans back in Seattle will remember too well the costly mistakes he made in the red zone last season, and those issues have only amplified in Vegas. The interceptions are piling up again – something that derailed games in Seattle and have now become drive-killers in Nevada.
Smith’s chemistry with his new offense looks off, and if that doesn’t change fast, this could go from a rocky patch to a full-on collapse.
Along that same theme of familiarity, another former Seahawk, offensive tackle Stone Forsythe, has resurfaced in Vegas. Carroll reportedly pushed to bring him in after Forsythe’s brief stint with the Giants came to an end.
While the intention may have been to provide depth behind Kolton Miller, Forsythe was forced into action – and the result was what you might expect. He struggled significantly against the Colts in Week 5, matched up against a defensive front that simply overwhelmed him.
If injuries continue to plague the Raiders’ line and Forsythe keeps seeing meaningful snaps, this offense is going to face serious protection problems.
This isn’t to discredit what Carroll has accomplished in his career. His time in Seattle will always hold its place in franchise lore – energy, optimism, and a whole lot of winning.
But in this new setting, with different voices in the front office making personnel calls, Carroll is in unfamiliar territory. The leadership is still there, the enthusiasm too, but the results haven’t followed.
And the next stretch doesn’t exactly offer a soft landing.
Week 6 pits the Raiders against the Tennessee Titans – a game that, on paper, looks winnable. But after that?
It’s a gauntlet. Kansas City.
Jacksonville. Denver.
That’s not the kind of schedule you want when you’re struggling to find your identity on both sides of the ball. By the time Week 11 rolls around, there’s a realistic scenario where the Raiders are staring down a 2-7 record.
For Seahawks fans, many of whom still hold Carroll in high regard, this isn’t the ending they’d want to see from a coach who brought so much success and swagger to Seattle. But the NFL doesn’t run on sentiment. It’s a results business – and right now, Pete Carroll and the Raiders are falling behind fast.
