INDIANAPOLIS – It was a question straight out of left field, but that didn’t stop Pete Carroll from giving it some serious thought during his Tuesday afternoon media session as the NFL’s annual meat market ramped up.
“A combine for coaches?” Carroll said, repeating the gist of the query. “I’d probably kick butt in that thing.”
His response tells you a lot about Carroll’s state of mind as he returns to the NFL coaching ranks with the Las Vegas Raiders after what turned out to be a one-year sabbatical. Sure, at 73, Carroll is the NFL’s oldest coach – seemingly representing AARP as much as he is fronting for Tom Brady – but that is hardly an intimidating factor.
Bring on the 40-yard dash.
Carroll, who last year stepped aside after 14 seasons as the Seattle Seahawks coach and, as he points out, never announced that he was retiring, seemed taken aback when asked after he left the podium if he felt he needed to convince people that he isn’t too old to handle the NFL grind again.
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Granted, Carroll wasn’t ready to retire and wanted to come back. Yet in a league that trends toward hiring hot, young offensive coordinators for head coaching jobs, it was hardly a given that he’d get another shot.
“It was 10 months,” Carroll told USA TODAY Sports, brushing aside the age question with the tally of his time out of coaching. “That was an obvious undercurrent that was there. But I didn’t even think twice about it, other than just totally going for it. Not worrying about it one bit.
“I don’t feel any different. I’m super-charged now, the year I just had.”
The year that was. While first-time coach Mike Macdonald took over his old team, Carroll stayed connected to the Seahawks as a senior advisor and spent a whole lot of time with grandkids. He also said he watched more football games than ever. The lineup ranging from high school JV action to the University of Washington to the NFL.
It’s striking that for all of his experience on football’s biggest stages – he won two national championships at Southern Cal before guiding the Seahawks to a Super Bowl crown and two appearances – Carroll maintained that being out of the fire last season allowed him to see football from a different vantage point.
That tells us something else about Carroll, and why he has had such staying power wrapped in his bubbly energy. He is still eager to learn, not too egotistical or set in his ways to embrace change.
The core football philosophies remain. ‘Yet if you’re competing,” Carroll said, “you have to be dynamic enough to continue to grow and expand on all that.”
Maybe the best lesson, even for a man with essentially a football doctorate’s degree, came in appreciating the rhythm of the game that transcended the levels of competition. From down-and-distance strategies to analytics, he saw the same game in many ways.
This was an eye-opener for Carroll, who has 181 NFL victories on his resume.
“Things kind of slowed down, this time around,” he said. “When you’re in the midst of all these seasons and every week you’re just so frantically going about planning for the next game, you don’t get that chance to have that perspective to slow your mind down and really take a visual look at it.”
Of course, this reboot for Carroll will test all of that. The Raiders haven’t won a playoff game since the 2002 season, and with so much spectacular losing he’s the 15th coach, including interims, during that span. Who’s the quarterback? Stay tuned.
The Raiders, after finishing 4-13 in Antonio Pierce’s one full season at the helm, have the sixth pick in the first round, which could position them for one of the top quarterbacks in the draft, Shedeur Sanders or Cam Ward. And until the musical chairs settle with veteran quarterbacks, there’s rampant speculation.
In any event, there’s a lot of fresh brain power in play, too, as the Raiders try to change the culture again. John Spytek is the new, first-time GM. Chip Kelly is back in the league as the highest-paid offensive coordinator, flanking D-coordinator Patrick Graham.
And of course, there’s the TB12 factor that Raiders owner Mark Davis banked on in selling a piece of his franchise to the winningest quarterback in Super Bowl history. Carroll said that in his substantial role as part-owner, Brady is “available every day” and “tuned into what is happening.”
In other words, Brady’s fingerprints are all over the cultural makeover.
“It’s hard for anyone to imagine the mentality that Tom lives with on a daily basis,” Carroll said. “He’s as competitive as anyone I’ve ever been around. He’s really clear in the vision that he has for how he hopes to see this go and how he would like to influence it wherever he can.”
If only there was a combine for NFL owners.
Instead, Carroll, with Brady’s support, will have to try measuring up in an AFC West division loaded with quarterback talent and serious coaching chops.
He swears he has the stomach and energy for this challenge.
And that’s only the beginning.