Why The Seattle Seahawks Are Moving On From Pete Carroll As Head Coach

The greatest head coach in Seattle Seahawks franchise history is now an adviser for the team.

The Seahawks are moving on from Pete Carroll as their head coach after 14 seasons, a Super Bowl, two total Super Bowl appearances, and the most victories in franchise history (137 victories). To top it all off, they’re moving on from him after he turned in a 9-8 season, his 11th winning season in Seattle.

To many, it’s a surprising move. To those who watched the team closely in recent years, it’s not surprising at all.

If you ignore Carroll’s comments from a few days ago that he expected to be back as the Seahawks’ coach next season and the non-playoff winning record, the Seahawks’ record explains why Seattle is finally moving in a different direction.

The Seahawks haven’t been a true Super Bowl contender in nearly a decade. One can circle back to the day Seattle lost Super Bowl XLIX to the New England Patriots as the last time they were a true viable threat as a Super Bowl contender.

Yes, it’s true they’ve consistently remained in the playoff hunt since then. They’ve turned in five double-digit win seasons and have made it to the playoffs on six different occasions.

They’ve also gone just 3-6 in the playoffs since then and haven’t advanced past the divisional round since the 2014 season.

The results were obvious — the Seahawks have plateaued under the leadership of Carroll.

That’s not an insult to Carroll; he remains a good head coach and his upbeat, energetic personality remains popular among players. In fact, judging off his exit press conference, he clearly wants to coach again.

“I competed pretty hard to be the coach,” Carroll said. “I wanted to make sure I stood up for all of the coaches, the players and the things that we had accomplished. Not so that we could be the coach still, but so we could continue to have the chance to be successful and keep the organization going. That’s what I was fighting for.

While speaking following the announcement that he wouldn’t return as head coach, it almost sounded as if Carroll was trying to sell other NFL teams on why he should continue coaching and why they should hire him to be their next head coach.

“I’m freakin’ jacked. I’m fired up,” Carroll said. “I’m not tired. I’m not worn down. You guys tried your best. You didn’t wear me out. It’s the end of the season and I’m supposed to go lay on a cot somewhere. I ain’t feeling like that.”

In fact, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see one of these seven other coaching destinations hire Carroll to be their head coach for the 2024 season.

But as far as his tenure as the head coach in Seattle goes, it was time to move on.

Outside of the obvious lack of results — the Seahawks haven’t had sustained postseason success in nearly a decade — the on-field product was so far removed from the glory days of the “Legion of Boom,” that it feels like forever ago that Carroll coached one of the greatest defensive units in NFL history.

Carroll — whose background is as a defensive coach — failed to re-build that identity following his initial years in Seattle and the departure of many of the unit’s key members such as Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas and Kam Chancellor.

This season alone, the defense ranked 25th in points and 30th in yards allowed. Their run defense was a particularly glaring weakness, ranking near the bottom of the NFL across the board, ranking 31st in rushing yards, 30th in rushing touchdowns and 27th in yards per attempt.

Those numbers were no different than the previous season when they ranked 25th in points and 26th in yards allowed. The run defense was equally as bad last season, ranking 30th in rushing yards, 27th in rushing touchdowns and 26th in yards per attempt.

This was despite the Seahawks going through a major overhaul in defensive personnel, completely re-stocking their defensive line with new players, while also bringing back longtime captain and veteran Bobby Wagner.

It continued a trend of the Seahawks ranking in the bottom third in defensive yardage allowed — the past four consecutive seasons — and Seattle failing to place within the top 10 in points allowed since the start of the 2017 season.

That’s not even mentioning the offensive unit’s lack of identity and consistency despite featuring former Pro Bowl talents such as Geno Smith, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett along with talented young players such as Kenneth Walker, Zach Charbonnet, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Noah Fant.

The Seahawks ranked 17th in points and 21st in yardage this season.

To top things off, Seattle had failed to compete with their chief rival, the San Francisco 49ers, in recent seasons. They’ve lost five consecutive times to San Francisco by a combined score of 148-72. The past three meetings haven’t been anywhere close, with the Seahawks losing by an average margin of 16 points per game.

It was clear the Seahawks needed to head into a different direction, which Carroll acknowledged during his press conference.

“This isn’t about me being the head coach. It’s about this organization being successful and being on course for the long haul. I realize that,” Carroll said. “I’m about as old as you can get in this business. There comes a time where they’ve got to make some decisions.”

When looking at things merely at face value, the move doesn’t seem to make sense. But when looking at the overall lack of success of the franchise in recent years, the defense’s scary decline, and the offense’s lack of consistency despite featuring one of the most talented units in the league, it’s not a surprise at all.

It was time to move on from Carroll.