Seahawks Coach, Pete Carroll Discusses Making Adjustments

When you have a chance to ask Coach Carroll a question, you better make it good. He’s a man that’s short on time, has an ADD attention span and an unbelievable “stream of consciousness” response. Yesterday I asked him what I’ve been wondering about for 3 seasons…

“Coach, beyond the Seahawks’ reputation of being a second half team, I’ve noticed your ability to make phenomenal adjustments at half time. Could you talk about how you do that? Do you yell or throw things? Do you give a pep talk? How do you do it?”

What follows are several of the points Coach made in response.

1. Thanks for noticing. It’s something that we really take pride in, making adjustments and not just at halftime, but throughout the game. But most especially at half time and throughout the second half. We’re really focused on adapting our game.
2. But seriously, you only have 12 minutes from the time they blow the whistle and the team runs down the tunnel. You just get the guys sat down and start the process and it feels like next thing you’re getting the two minute warning and you’re slapping guys on the pads and they’re running back out onto the field.
3. So really, coaching isn’t about rah, rah, rah. It’s about teaching and learning. We (the coaches) are gathering data throughout the first half about how they’re using their players and their schemes. Before end of half, we’re condensing it and assigning it to position coaches because we know we only have a few minutes to share it at the half. So we’re learning their game and then we’re teaching the players at half. It’s very focused.
4. Really, rah, rah, rah doesn’t work. You can get a guy all up in his head and confident at half and then he goes out and gets hit in the neck on the first play of the 3^rd quarter and it all flies out of his head.
5. With some players, they learn differently so we target how we’re teaching them and making adjustments with players as well. But most of our players are really smart and we have very few problems that way.
6. Overall, the best teacher at times is the bench. Breno last week was a good example. We have a young team and they get excited at times and they lose focus and make stupid mistakes. Sometimes the best thing is to sit them on the bench and say, someone else is going to play your position. When you go back in, you remember what it feels like to watch someone else play in your spot.
7. But, so, yelling doesn’t work. And the game is really fast and these guys are taking hits and flying around. So making adjustments is about seeing things from the sideline or up top and helping them translate that to the field.

So there you have it… How the Seahawks make adjustments!