Pete Carroll reiterates he wasn't ready to stop coaching when Seahawks fired him

As former Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll begins a new chapter of his career, he hasn't forgotten how the previous one came to a close.

Feb 25, 2025; Indianapolis, IN, USA; Las Vegas Raiders coach Pete Carroll speaks during the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The Seattle Seahawks moving on from longtime head coach Pete Carroll in January of 2024 marked an unexpected end of an era, not just to those on the outside, but Carroll himself as well.

Yes, Carroll was the oldest head coach in the league when he and the Seahawks parted ways - a title he re-claimed when the Las Vegas Raiders hired him as their head coach on Jan. 24 - and the team missed the playoffs in 2023 after a surprising appearance the year prior. Still, the decision came as a major surprise in Seattle and the NFL world as a whole.

Jan 7, 2024; Glendale, Arizona, USA; Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll looks on in the second half against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images | Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images

In Carroll's mind, he had and still has a lot of gas left in the tank, and while he has no ill will toward his old team, he made it very clear he wasn't ready to walk away last year.

“If you remember, I didn’t retire,” Carroll said at the NFL Scouting Combine, per Bob Condotta of the Seattle Times. “I did that purposely. I wasn’t ready to stop coaching. We had a nice agreement up there (with the Seahawks) as we turned this thing around. I was really excited for John Schneider to get his chance to do what he gets to do. In my mind, I was always competing for what was coming up.

“Maybe the actions I took, because you didn’t see me very visibly, I was not making a point to do that. I really wanted to take to the opportunity of being around my family and all of that.”

From a certain point of view, though, it may have been a blessing in disguise for Carroll. The 73-year-old got to spend the year around his children and grandchildren, including his oldest son Brennan Carroll, who spent last season as the offensive coordinator at Washington. He also started teaching a class at USC's business school, which he plans to finish despite taking the job in Las Vegas.

In short, it was a year of growth for Carroll, even with him being in his mid 70s.

“There’s patterns to the game that I saw differently,” he said. “There’s patterns to down-and-distance situations, whether you’re playing JV football or you’re playing for the Super Bowl. You can see that occur in games more clearly. Really, a lot of it was the analytic outlook of it. But it was kind of like … things kind of slowed down a little bit watching it this time around.

“When you’re in the midst of all of these seasons and every week you’re just so frantically going about planning for the next game you don’t get the chance to have that perspective and slow your mind down and really take a clear visual look at it.”

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