Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick: Seahawks clearly have the better coach

There's a lot of talk that both the Seattle Seahawks and the Patriots may move on from their long-term coaches. Pete Carroll easily outperformed Bill Belichick when you level the playing field. Take away their Hall of Fame quarterbacks, and it's obvious.

Let me begin by saying that I'm no longer certain that the Seahawks should keep Pete Carroll as head coach. Even through what seemed to be their death spiral - you know, that four-game losing streak - I believed that Pete would eventually right the ship. After the debacle of the loss to the Steelers, I'm no longer so sure.

The Hawks didn't seem to understand the concept of tackling, let alone perform it correctly. The Seattle defense missed 20 tackles in the game, while Pittsburgh missed just five. The Seahawks needed 55 assists to bring down the opposing ball carrier.

At first glance, it may seem like a good thing, a clear indication of gang tackling. Yeah, not really. An NFL player should be able to drop the other guy in his tracks, and the Hawks weren't up to the task. As a point of reference, the Steelers needed just 11 assists to bring the Seahawks down. So since that game, I've been wavering in my support of Coach Carroll. Can he still get the job done?

The Seattle Seahawks have been much better than the Patriots

There's another coach in the league with an even bigger legacy than Carroll who's facing even more uncertainty. That would be Bill Belichick of the Patriots. I specified his team because many 12s may not realize New England is still in the league at this point. Yes, our beloved Seahawks are in danger of dropping to 8-9 for the year, which would be their second losing season in the last three. At best, the Pats will finish the year at 5-12 and are guaranteed their third losing season of the last four. So let's look at which coach was truly skating on the talents of their star player.

That is, they've been much better since both teams moved on from their best-ever quarterbacks. Since Wilson left for Denver - and will soon be moving on again - Seattle has gone 18-18. I'm counting the Hawks 1-2 record while Russ missed three games in 2020. As for the Patriots, they've gone 25-37 since Tom Brady got sick of Belichick's act. Right now, it feels like the sky is falling in Seattle, and believe me, I get it. The defense has played atrociously at times. At best, you could characterize the entire team as inconsistent.

How exactly do you think the fans in New England feel? The team is 4-12, and those four wins have come by a combined margin of 15 points. Pro Bowl selections might not be the best indication of a team's talent, but they're not too far off. The Niners - ugh - and Ravens are almost certainly the two best teams in the league, and they have nine and seven starters, respectively. Even our beloved Seahawks have three starters - yay! -and alternates. The Patriots have zero players and so far not even an alternate. That will undoubtedly change as half the starters opt out of the Yahtzee tournament and whatever else the NFL will be doing this year, but it's still one heck of an indictment of the program.