Pete Carroll is no longer with the Seattle Seahawks. This is not breaking news. He left after the 2023 season and was replaced by a coach half his age, Mike Macdonald. The move seems to be a good one for the Seahawks.
Carroll is now the head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders, and former Seattle quarterback Geno Smith will join him. Things have changed quite a bit for the team in the last two offseasons. If you went to sleep in December of 2023 and just woke up, you have much to catch up on.
But Carroll's tenure with the Seahawks has long legs. His moves before 2024 still affect the team. Here are three things he got wrong.
Pete Carroll's mistakes are still costing the Seahawks
Choosing Malik McDowell, L.J. Collier and Rasheed Penny in back-to-back-to-back drafts
One of the common misperceptions about the Seahawks this offseason and last is that head coach Mike Macdonald is constructing the roster the way he wants to. That is not the case. When Pete Carroll worked for the Seahawks from 2010 to 2023, he had the final say over all roster moves. John Schneider took over those decisions after Carroll was removed as anything but an "advisor."
In fact, while Carroll was the coach, he was also the Vice President of Football Operations, so he outranked Schneider. If Carroll wanted a player, Seattle chose him. In other words, we can blame the early-pick disasters between 2017 and 2019 on the former coach.
To be fair, a lot of the greatness the Seahawks had between 2012 and 2015 was built on mid-round picks being winners (Russell Wilson, Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman, etc.), but Seattle also got great production out of first-rounder Earl Thomas and second-rounder Bobby Wagner.
Missing for most of the first two rounds for three straight years in the late 2010s destroyed the team's growth for years. McDowell never played a down for Seattle. Collier couldn't stop the run or pressure the passer. Penny missed 33 games in his final three seasons with Seattle, appearing in only 18.
Not replacing Shane Waldron with Dave Canales in 2023
One of the pitfalls of Carroll's later tenure with the Seahawks was that he was too loyal to his coaching staff. Loyalty is an excellent trait for a human being, but it is detrimental to a football coach. Carroll not only held on to one coordinator too long by the early 2020s, but two.
Ken Norton, Jr., should never have been a defensive coordinator. His players liked him, but that did not improve the defense.
But even worse was Carroll's holding onto Waldron as the offensive coordinator. Instead of bringing some semblance of a Sean McVay-type offense with him to Seattle, he was far too pass-happy, and he did not get his quarterbacks to be better than they otherwise would have been. The worst part is that Dave Canales served as his passing game coordinator, and he would have been the better OC.
Canales bolted the Seahawks after the 2022 season, became a successful OC for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2023, and became the head coach of the Carolina Panthers in 2024. He appears on the cusp of making potential-bust Bryce Young into an outstanding quarterback.
Choosing D'Wayne Eskridge instead of Creed Humphrey in 2021
2025 is not the first year that the Seahawks have needed to find offensive line help. The issue has existed for the last decade. Unfortunately, in 2021, the Seahawks only had three draft picks. None have worked out, and none are still on the team. All three (Eskridge, cornerback Tre Brown, and offensive tackle Stone Forsythe) are barely holding on in the league.
Humphrey was viewed as a potentially good interior offensive lineman and was taken at pick 63 in 2021. Eskridge was chosen at pick 56. Eskridge joined the Miami Dolphins after being released by the Seahawks in 2024, but he might not make the roster in 2025. Meanwhile, Humphrey is a three-time Pro Bowler who was named First-Team All-Pro at center last season.