The Seattle Seahawks have been relatively massively successful since head coach Pete Carroll arrived in 2010. Seattle has the fifth-best winning percentage of all NFL teams since 2010 and they are tied with the second-most playoff appearances. Criticize Pete Carroll, if you choose, but he wins football games.
That's why when Carroll doesn't call a timeout when one thinks he should or doesn't discipline a player when we think he needs to that he should get the benefit of the doubt. It's OK to disagree with the coach. That's what being a fan is all about: Raw emotion and not having to answer to ownership. Heck, in a way, ownership answers to the fans.
Still, Carroll saw what he saw as fit when discussing what happened when DK Metcalf drew yet another 15-yard penalty this past week. In the past, Carroll said he has spoken with Metcalf about keeping calm when things get a bit heated. But when referring to the Week 6 incident, Carroll didn't seem to think there was an issue with what Metcalf did. What? KJ Wright even disagreed with Carroll's assessment.
Former Seattle Seahawks linebacker KJ Wright thinks Pete Carroll was wrong
On his weekly radio show on Seattle Sports on Wednesday, KJ Wright was asked about what was going on with DK Metcalf getting so many 15-yard penalties over the years for taunting, unsportsmanlike conduct, or unnecessary roughness. Then the conversation turned to what Carroll said specifically about the penalty in Week 6 in which he backed Metcalf's behavior and said Metcalf was still just in the process of blocking the Bengals cornerback and Metcalf didn't hear the whistle blow the play dead.
The clip was played for Wright from Carroll's Monday show on Seattle Sports when he was saying Metcalf didn't act of frustration before drawing the flag and not hearing the whistle. Wright's first response was, "No, coach. No, coach." Wright said the players don't "hear" the whistle. If a player stops and another player shoves that player then the player doing the shoving is at fault and risking the other player to injury.
Wright said what bothered him the most was that after the play Metcalf was still talking about the play but no coaches were really talking to Metcalf, at least not enough for Metcalf to simply listen to what was being said to him. Wright said the issue with the penalties should have stopped and shouldn't ever happen and also said of Seattle's coaches in respect to not having Metcalf stop with the bad penalties, "Whatever you tolerate, you encourage."
A little praise for DK Metcalf
While Metcalf does cost his team field position and yards too many times (more than once is too many times), he's still a very good receiver. Does he have Tyler Lockett's hands? No, but few receivers do, including elite receivers. Metcalf is still catching 66.7 percent of his targets so far in 2023 and that is a career high. He’s also averaging 15.3 yards per catch which is his highest since 2020.
That number of 66.7 percent is actually higher than Ja’Marr Chase’s career average of 65.1 and even better than Jerry Rice’s number of 62.4. No, I am not saying Metcalf is as good as Chase or Rice, but he’s not far off and he certainly isn’t awful. Metcalf gets a bad rap from many that he doesn’t have good hands and that’s simply not true and the statistics don’t back that up either.
Does Metcalf need to control himself a lot more on the field? Definitely, yes. The Seahawks coaches also need to do a better job of getting one of their better receivers to understand he needs to be more calm and not risk hurting his team.
But a Seattle team without DK Metcalf is a diminished team. Had quarterback Geno Smith seen a wide-open Metcalf a couple of times in Week 6, maybe the outcome of the game would have been different. While Metcalf did have another bad penalty called on him, he is also not the reason that the Seahawks lost the game.
Colin Cowherd praises Pete Carroll
So back to Pete Carroll a bit. I have seen wide-ranging reactions to Carroll over the years, especially after each Seattle loss. No team is going to win every game and the Seahawks have certainly won their share of their games since Carroll and general manager John Schneider came to run the team in 2010. Maybe instead of a mindset of “Carroll isn’t a good coach,” we look at Carroll more relatively.
FOX Sports talking head and Pacific Northwest native Colin Cowherd has oftentimes said negative things about Carroll. But recently Cowherd had to praise Carroll after watching, as we all have, the mess that the New England Patriots have become. Cowherd said that Carroll has been able to “pivot” four times while with the Seahawks (meaning, some drastic change such as a quarterback move) and has been successful each time. However, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick hasn’t truly been able to pivot once as before New England had Tom Brady the team wasn’t overly good and they have gotten digressively worse after Brady left a few years ago.
A lot of people think Belichick is the best coach in NFL history. Is that true or did he simply have a quarterback who made his team’s better than the coach would have made them had Brady not played in New England? With Seattle there is no real debate: The Seahawks have consistently been pretty good since Carroll arrived regardless of the quarterback.
So for those who get into arguments that Pete Carroll is not a good coach, they are wrong. His overall record speaks for itself. Is he a “great” coach? That can be debated. But he is better than most coaches in the history of professional football and he’s absolutely the best coach in Seattle Seahawks history.