Pete Carroll wants to coach again and who can blame him? Professionally, that is what he did for 50 years. It is difficult to stop doing anything one chooses to do for that long, but even worse when someone is given no choice in their job ending. The Seattle Seahawks fired Carroll from being their head coach last offseason.
A team looking to hire a new coach could do worse than Carroll. He knows how to re-set a culture. He did so at USC, one of the closest programs you can get to an NFL franchise in college, and then Carroll did the same for the Seahawks after being hired by Seattle in 2010. It might take the coach a year or two to truly succeed, but once he does, the organization usually sees long-term high-end success.
Carroll left Seattle with no ill-will either. It is not like 12s don't still want him to do well. He was seemingly a quite decent human being, and he had the best winning percentage of any Seahawks head coach ever. His players loved playing for him. His issue was not personnel, but a lack of adjusting his defensive scheme to what opposing teams were trying to do.
Geno Smith effusive in his praise of former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll
The coach reportedly has an interest in the Chicago Bears head coaching vacancy. Chicago have a young quarterback, Caleb Williams, who might be OK if the team builds a decent offensive line. The Bears' defense appears to be pretty good, however. If Carroll is hired as the head coach, he only needs to hire a decent offensive coordinator for things to turn around for the Bears relatively quickly.
Several current Seahawks are likely rooting for Carroll to get a new job, and to succeed once there. One of those players is quarterback Geno Smith. Smith did not get much of a chance to start in the NFL until Carroll had enough faith in him to give him QB1 duties for Seattle in 2022. Smith turned out to be a pretty good quarterback, though maybe one who is not capable of long-term greatness.
After the Seahawks defeated the Bears in Week 17, Smith was asked about Carroll potentially being the head coach for Chicago. The quarterback's praise was effusive.
Smith said, "Coach Carroll, man, is a special human being. He's a believer. He's a guy always going to be upbeat. He's always going to fight, and he has one way about him. That's what I love about him. I think we're very much the same in that way. We just go. There is no stop. There is no nothing like that. Just believe in us and just go. Coach Carroll can help out any team and anybody. I'm a big advocate of his, and I know he is of mine. I love that guy."
We should all have someone on our side the way Smith has Carroll's back. And the coach deserves that, too.