Is Seahawks coach Pete Carroll the best in the NFC West?

Pete Carroll of the Seahawks is a great football coach. He has won one Super Bowl. But is he still the best coach in his division?

The Seahawks have had a few good coaches in the franchises’ history. Pete Carroll is the best of them. I say this not only because he was head coach when the team won its only Super Bowl. But also because of the sustained success Seattle has had under Carroll.

Carroll, however, will turn 67 years old during the 2018 season. There is speculation that maybe he only coaches two more seasons. And the NFL is more and more turning to younger coaches to head their football teams.

All of the NFC West head coaches are nearly 20 years younger than Carroll or more. Combine the ages of San Francisco 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan (38) and Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay (32) and they almost equal Carroll’s current age.

But age is really just a number. And Carroll’s important number is one. This represents the number of Super Bowls he has won as an NFL head coach. The other coaches in the NFC West have not yet even won a playoff game.

The others

McVay, though, completely changed the mindset of the Rams in his first year as a head coach in 2017. The Rams went from methodical and underwhelming under former coach Jeff Fischer to imaginative offensively.

In 2018, McVay will have even more pressure, however. Not only will he need to improve on 2017, but he now has an even more loaded roster and will have no excuses for losing early in the playoffs. McVay’s offense was sublime in the regular season but faltered in their one playoff game last year.

Steve Wilks – 48 years old – is simply too new to even guess at what he will do as a head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. And he has a roster that is changing offensively. He is a defensive coach, though, having been the defensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers in 2017. Maybe he will be OK as the Cardinals should have a decent defense.

Shanahan’s first season with the 49ers actually showed promise. He got off to kind of a rotten start, but after finally starting quarterback Jimmy Garappolo, San Francisco won their last five games to go 6-10. Not a great record, but that finish brings a lot of confidence to the 49ers in 2018.

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So while McVay may become an all-time great coach and Shanahan may win five Super Bowls, right now they are not the best coach in their division. Pete Carroll still is the best coach in the NFC West. Not until McVay and Shanahan at least win a playoff game should that change. The Rams may have better talent than the Seahawks in 2018, but if Pete Carroll had LA’s defense, he might win his second Super Bowl. Let’s see if McVay can win his first.