Pete Carroll gets brutally honest about the biggest process the Raiders have to go through during training camp
When the Las Vegas Raiders hired Pete Carroll, the former Seattle Seahawks head coach, everyone knew that things would start to get very different. This franchise and team needed a culture change. Frankly, a lot of things needed to change. And, they got the perfect man for the job. Carroll took the Seattle Seahawks, changed […]
When the Las Vegas Raiders hired Pete Carroll, the former Seattle Seahawks head coach, everyone knew that things would start to get very different.
This franchise and team needed a culture change. Frankly, a lot of things needed to change. And, they got the perfect man for the job. Carroll took the Seattle Seahawks, changed the culture of a losing program to one that won one Super Bowl against the Denver Broncos and went to another one, but lost to the dynasty that was the New England Patriots. He turned them around.
And, it started with a culture change and an identity change. That's not too different than what he has to do with the Raiders. The culture change has already begun, and as he has said, the players are all buying in, and that's what matters most.
But this team still has to find out who they want to be, and Carroll knows that, too. In fact, he kept it brutally honest with the media.
Pete Carroll's Raiders are still trying to find themselves.
“And we've got to find ourselves," Carroll said Tuesday. "We've got to figure out who we are, and that needs to be guided well. And so, it starts with me, and then the coordinators, through the position coaches, have to do a tremendous job of figuring out what they can bring us with the players that we have.
"And so, it's a big process. And it might sound kind of loosey goosey on that thought, but this is a specific science to me. Man, this is working and figuring out who these players are, what they're all about, what they bring, how far they're willing to go, and can we translate who they are as they learn our stuff and make it come to life. So, it's a fascinating process. It really is. I'm really pumped about getting in the middle of it.”
The identity of this team, and what Carroll wants it to be, is pretty clear. They want to run the ball well and set up the passing game with the run. And, they want to be a defensive-minded team. That's what all of Carroll's teams have been. But what he's saying is that they have to get to that, because they aren't there yet.
And that's completely normal. This is a team that just got its fourth new regime in four years, and has had as many quarterbacks since Derek Carr. So, yes, it will take some time.
But that's what training camp is for.
Three biggest storylines to watch before Day 1 of Las Vegas Raiders training camp under Pete Carroll
The Las Vegas Raiders have a lot of things going on in training camp.
