Las Vegas Raiders head coach Pete Carroll will be bringing a very different approach than what previous regimes brought
When you talk about some of the greatest football coaches of all time, and not just NFL coaches or college coaches, but just football coaches, and the greatest minds in the sport, it's nearly impossible not to bring up Pete Carroll. He won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks against the Denver Broncos, went […]
When you talk about some of the greatest football coaches of all time, and not just NFL coaches or college coaches, but just football coaches, and the greatest minds in the sport, it's nearly impossible not to bring up Pete Carroll. He won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks against the Denver Broncos, went to another one but lost to the New England Patriots, and won a National Championship with USC at the college level.
So, yeah, he is one of the greatest to ever do it, in both college and NFL. If football did their Hall of Fame similar to the way Basketball does it, where it's just the Basketball Hall of Fame with both NBA and college people in it, Carroll would be one of the first ones in. But, he's not retired just yet, in fact, he feels like he still has a lot left in the bag to give to the Las Vegas Raiders, his new employer.
And, the fit between the two sides is perfect. The Raiders need some continuity and a coach who can rebuild a franchise. They got that in Carroll. They are also getting a way of doing things that they have not had in their last few regimes under Mark Davis, the owner of the Raiders. Carroll's philosophy, and the way he does things, stem all the way back to his college coaching days.
"That university (USC), to me I look back at the days in LA as the building blocks of the philosophy we were able to take to Seattle," Carroll said on Monday. "To take that to the NFL was really just an experiment in my mind. Yeah, the really clear lesson is that we have a philosophy and a way to do things, things we believe in, and the sooner we can get everybody understanding it and being on board with it, the sooner we'll move ahead and move forward. I'm not talking about just the football team.
"I'm talking about the people in the organization. I'm talking about the people who support us. Everybody has an inkling that they want to see what they're all about. We're teaching, and we're reaching out to them. I think it takes everybody to make us as good as we can possibly be. It's that process that we'll go through that we've done before. It's an exciting, challenging kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity again. So we're going to take it on with great energy."
And, I know it sounds like Carroll is just doing coach speak, but he isn't. The way he does things is pretty much a blend of college and the NFL, where the people on the staff mean so much because connections to the players mean so much. His philosophy is not like anything the Raiders have had in some time.
And ultimately, I think that will end up being one of the biggest reasons this will work out for the Raiders. They cannot have just another coach. They cannot have a coach who will be fired in two years because no progressions were made, but instead, regressions.
They plan to use everything Carroll knows to get this team back to the top, and this philosophy will help.
