Carroll emotional in exit, 'fired up' for future

SEATTLE — After 14 seasons, 10 playoff appearances and the franchise’s lone Super Bowl championship, Pete Carroll is out as the Seattle Seahawks‘ coach.

Team owner Jody Allen said in a statement Wednesday that the decision was made “after thoughtful meetings and careful consideration for the best interest of the franchise.” Carroll, whose Seahawks finished 9-8 and missed out on the playoffs for the second time in three seasons, will remain with the team in an unspecified advisory role.

In an emotional farewell news conference Wednesday, Carroll, reading from a prepared statement, said he and ownership have “mutually agreed to set a new course.” However, he said he “competed pretty hard” to remain Seattle’s coach and that he ultimately “went along with their intentions.” Carroll said his comments after the Seahawks’ season finale that he wanted to continue coaching the team were “true to the bone.”

“I want to make sure that that’s clear as things have shifted so quickly in most people’s perspective,” Carroll said. “It’s been an honor and a thrill to be part of this program and I’ve loved every minute of it. You’ve watched me love it.”

Asked if he’d entertain another head coaching job if the right opportunity arose, Carroll said he didn’t know, adding that “today is about today.” Carroll said it has yet to be determined what his role as an advisor will entail, but that it will not include assisting general manager John Schneider in the search for his successor.

“We’re going to figure that out,” he said of his advisor role. “We don’t really know right now. But I’m grateful for the intention that the organization has to try to find something that makes sense. So we’ll see. I don’t know.”

The Seahawks are expected to be interested in, among others, Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter. Quinn served as a Seahawks assistant from 2009 to 2010 and was their defensive coordinator from 2013 to 2014, when they won Super Bowl XLVIII and nearly repeated as champions the following year.

The Seahawks have no obvious head-coaching candidates on their current staff. Carroll’s assistant coaches have been given permission to look for jobs elsewhere, a source told ESPN.

“Pete is the winningest coach in Seahawks history, brought the city its first Super Bowl title, and created a tremendous impact over the past 14 years on the field and in the community,” Allen said. “His expertise in leadership and building a championship culture will continue as an integral part of our organization moving forward.”

After the Seahawks beat the Arizona Cardinals Sunday but missed out on a wild-card berth, Carroll said he intended to return as Seattle’s coach in 2024, a point he reiterated on his radio show the next morning.

“I plan to be coaching this team,” Carroll told Seattle Sports 710 AM. “I told you that I love these guys, and that’s what I would like to be doing and see how far I can go. I’m not worn out. I’m not tired. I’m not any of that stuff. I need to do a better job and I need to help my coaches more and we need to do a better job of coaching, and there’s a lot of area for improvement.”

The Seahawks got off to a 5-2 start that briefly had them in first place in the NFC West, but a second-half skid doomed their playoff hopes. That stretch included their only four-game losing streak of the Carroll era. Among those losses was a 31-13 blowout on Thanksgiving night at the hands of the division rival San Francisco 49ers, who have beaten the Seahawks five straight times (including in last season’s wild-card round) by a combined score of 148-72.

The Seahawks also lost 37-3 to the Baltimore Ravens in November, their second-worst margin of defeat under Carroll.

Over the last 14 seasons, the Seahawks’ .606 winning percentage in regular-season games ranks sixth-best in the NFL. Their 10 playoff appearances include five NFC West titles, but they haven’t advanced past the divisional round since the 2014 season and are 25-26 since 2021 with their only trip to the playoffs in that stretch ending with a wild-card loss.

“We lost our edge really,” Carroll said, “the edge to be great, which was really how we ran the football and how we played defense. It wasn’t as good as it needed to be. You all get tired of me, thinking I’m three yards and a cloud of dust. You guys don’t get it, and I’m sorry about that. But it’s all part of the whole cycle of what you do when you put a football team together, and we weren’t as clear in the last couple of years.”

Carroll’s news conference had a celebratory feel. Music blared as he took the stage inside the auditorium at Seahawks headquarters. It was packed with team employees, including linebacker Bobby Wagner, quarterback Geno Smith and other players. Carroll, the only person who spoke, declined to elaborate on what led to Allen’s decision after their end-of-season meetings.

He said “there’s no doubt in my mind” that the Seahawks were in position to take a step forward under his leadership.

“This isn’t about me being the head coach,” he said. “It’s about this organization being successful and being on course for the long haul of it as well. I realize that. I’m about as old as you can get in this business and there’s coming a time they’ve got to make some decisions. So moving towards the future, if there’s some way that I can add something to them down the road, we’ll see what happens.

“But this is a good move for them and [Schneider is] going to take the bull by the horns and roll. I’m so thankful that I get to see him take that next step and watch what he does with it. He’s going to kick butt.”

Hired by the Seahawks in 2010, Carroll had the fourth-longest tenure with his current team of any head coach, behind Bill Belichick, Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh. At 72, Carroll had been the NFL’s oldest head coach for several years but has given zero indications that he’s getting close to retirement.

The five-year extension he signed in 2020 put him under contract with the Seahawks through the 2025 season. Schneider, who arrived with Carroll in 2010 and is signed through the 2027 draft, now stands alone as the highest-ranking member of their football operations department.

Carroll exits as the winningest coach in Seahawks history, with a record of 137-89-1 and 10 playoff victories. Including his head-coaching stints with the New York Jets and the New England Patriots, his career record of 181-131-1 puts him in a tie with Tomlin for 13th in NFL history in regular-season and playoff wins. Along with Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer, Carroll is one of only three coaches to win both a college national championship and a Super Bowl.

The Seahawks marked Carroll’s third — and by far most successful — stint as an NFL coach. He lasted one season with the Jets, who went 6-10 in 1994, and was fired by the Patriots after three seasons, having gone 27-21 with two playoff appearances. After spending the 2000 season out of football and reshaping his coaching philosophy, Carroll was hired by USC, beginning a dominant nine-year run that included seven consecutive Pac-10 titles and a pair of national championships.

The Seahawks lured him away from USC in 2010 with the promise of final say in personnel moves, something he didn’t have in either of his two previous head-coaching stops. Carroll, who also held the title of executive vice president of football operations, teamed with Schneider to lead the Seahawks through their most successful run in franchise history.

Seattle’s 10 playoff appearances since 2010 matched the number of times the Seahawks had reached the postseason in their 34 years of existence before Carroll and Schneider arrived. The Seahawks hammered Peyton Manning and the Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII. Their hopes of repeating as world champions the next year against the Patriots were dashed when Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson‘s pass at the goal line in the closing seconds.

During the most emotional moment of his news conference, Carroll broke down while talking about what his wife, Glena, has meant to him. He later said his favorite memory over the last 14 years was standing on the stage after the Seahawks’ Super Bowl victory and finding his wife in the crowd.

“That was it,” Carroll said, “by far.”

The end of Carroll’s opening statement marked one of several times in which he sounded as though he’s not ready to give up coaching.

“I’m freakin jacked, I’m fired up, I’m not tired, I’m not worn down,” he said. “You guys tried your best, you didn’t wear me out. It’s the end of the season, I’m supposed to go lay on the couch somewhere — I ain’t feeling like that. What’s coming, I don’t know. I’ve got no idea and I really don’t care right now, but I’m excited about it because there’s a lot to learn, there’s a lot to study, there’s some great discoveries that are going to come our way.

“And as my all-time mentor Bud Grant said, not in so many words, ‘There’s rivers to wade, there’s waves to catch and there’s mountains to hike.’ It wasn’t exactly how he said it, but I get it. There’s some cool stuff that we’re going to do here and I look forward to all that.”