'There's a million things' – Raiders' Pete Carroll used mandatory minicamp to learn the things he needed to learn about his new team
The Las Vegas Raiders are looking good this time of year if looking good means that they are doing everything right so far in the offseason. If that is the case, the Raiders have made some amazing moves in free agency, letting expensive players walk so they don't overpay, and replacing them with players who […]
The Las Vegas Raiders are looking good this time of year if looking good means that they are doing everything right so far in the offseason.
If that is the case, the Raiders have made some amazing moves in free agency, letting expensive players walk so they don't overpay, and replacing them with players who may be better and cheaper. And then they nailed the 2025 NFL Draft, getting one of the best classes of any team in the draft.
And most importantly, they got a new regime in the building. Yes, they are on their third regime in three years, and that's certainly not a good thing, but this regime is a bit different. This regime, well, they all come from winning backgrounds. Pete Carroll with his Seattle Seahawks days, where he won a Super Bowl over the Denver Broncos, and John Spytek, where he helped assemble the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team that beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl.
So, this regime has experience and they know how to win. That's important. But, there is still a lot left to do this offseason. The last few weeks, they have been busy checking some things off their list, and it's fair to say the new regime, and specifically head coach Pete Carroll, have learned a lot about their new team.
"Well, we learned a lot," Pete Carroll told reporters on the last day of mandatory minicamp. "The whole purpose here is to figure them out, figure guys out; it's a relationship that we that we're building on, that we need to know who we're teaching and how they operate, how they function, and all that.
"So, the whole time has been about information gathering. You would think it's all on the football field, but it's way more than that, and we've gone to great depths trying to get to understand our guys, what's important to them, what are their goals and their principles, and how they approach stuff so that we can better teach them and reach them. So, I wouldn't even know where to start. There are a million things."
That is the exact reason why something as small as OTAs, rookie minicamps, and mandatory minicamps are as important as they are for a team like the Raiders. They need to make a huge jump this season, and that's very possible, but the coaching has to be right. This is helping Carroll know his team better and put himself and the team in situations to get better during the season.
The Raiders are certainly headed in the right direction, and they have the head coach to get there. Carroll has turned programs around before, whether it be Seattle or the USC Trojans back in the day. He knows what he is doing.
He's learning about his team, and that has to feel great.
