Slamming Las Vegas Raiders coach Pete Carroll has become something of a cottage industry for the last month or two, and both fans and media members have participated. It’s been easy enough to do given how badly things have gone off the rails for Carroll and the Raiders this year, but now that the season is almost over with no fix in sight, it’s fair to ask exactly what happened here.
The first thing Carroll did wrong was to overestimate the roster, according to a piece written by Jacob Robinson of The Athletic. The Raiders were a 4-13 team, and Carroll assumed that with a new quarterback and a young playmaker like running back Ashton Jeanty, he’d have the firepower to not just compete, but win right away.
“We’re starting right now and going for it immediately. … We’re going to … build this team as quickly as we can,” the Raiders coach said at his introductory news conference.
Carroll also combined with GM John Spytek to take a different approach to roster building. It’s easy to forget now, but when Carroll took charge in Seattle he passed on drafting flashy running back C.J. Spiller. Instead, he bolstered the offensive line with left tackle Russell Okung, a move that solidified the offensive line for years.
This year, the Raider went for the flash, drafting Jeanty, who’s struggled to find running room behind a leaky offensive line all year. He’s had a couple of breakout games where his potential has become evident, but he’ll need to be running behind a much better line to realize his immense potential.
The situation with the Raiders coordinators is also evidence of badly Carroll overestimated the state of the roster. Pairing Carroll with offensive coordinator was a shotgun marriage at best, especially since Carroll likes to run the rock and Kelly believes strongly in a motion offense with lots of deception.
Carroll also seems to have panicked badly when he realized the extent of his mistakes. Firing coordinators in midseason is a typical panic move that losing teams make, and as Robinson pointed out, the Raiders now have as many fired coordinators as they do victories.
What’s truly mind-boggling about all this is the idea that anyone who’s watched this team can imagine Carroll coming back and having success next year. The effort level and the results don’t square up at all with his comments from week to week, and while it’s sad to see his coaching career end this way, it’s hard to imagine anything else happening regardless of what hapens Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.