Pete Carroll reveals main reason why Seattle Seahawks removed him as head coach

By Andrew Buller-Russ

·Updated: January 13, 2024

For the first time since 2010, Pete Carroll will not be coaching the Seattle Seahawks when they kick off a new season. While Carroll’s new advisory role is not yet defined, the belief is that the 72-year-old will remain in the Seahawks organization in some capacity.

Any way you slice it, Carroll’s removal from the head coaching position in Seattle came as a surprise. Yet, many would think it was simply a matter of time for the aging NFL mind. However, Coach Carroll has since made it clear that he fought to remain in his role and still has the desire to continue coaching.

Pete Carroll’s attempts to sway Seattle Seahawks’ ownership failed because they weren’t ‘football guys’

So, if Pete Carroll didn’t step down or retire due to age, what happened here? We may finally have our answer.

According to Carroll himself, he tried his best to convince Seattle’s key decision-makers to give him a 15th season coaching the Seahawks, yet those attempts failed, possibly because they weren’t “football people.”

Here’s Carroll commenting on Seattle’s process once their regular season concluded, where he may have offered a hint or two about why things ended up the way they did.

“The first thing that we do is we go through the season and what happened and what took place, and what were the reasons why?” he said. “What could we have done better along the way, and what would be the choices to move ahead? Because you’re competing, you’re trying to figure it out. I have very, very strong feelings about what we did, and where we screwed it up and why we didn’t come through the way we wanted to and what we did well. So we just needed to touch on all of that, and the perception that the media has on the outside is not always accurate.”

“And then, OK, what is the essence of the adjustments that are necessary? And that’s where maybe we don’t see eye to eye on it,” Carroll said. “I see it one way and I think I’ve got a way to fix it, and I’m not going to kind of halfway fix it. I’m trying to fix it so it’s perfect. So I’ve got real precise and specific thoughts, and they may not see it that way. They may not agree with it, they may not see that that’s the right answer, or that’s not the answer that makes them feel good. The difficult part is if it’s really hard because they’re not football people. They’re not coaches. So to get to the real details of it, it’s really difficult for other people … That’s basically just common dynamics that you deal with.”
Pete Carroll on his end of season meeting with Seattle Seahawks

Those quotes seem pretty innocent, right? This isn’t Coach Carroll’s first rodeo. He’s not about to burn any bridges on his way out. Yet, on Wednesday, when some members of the media tried to get him to speak about whether he and team owner Jody Allen had any creative differences, Carroll said, “No. No. I can’t. I’m not going to.”

While he may not come out and say it, it’s not hard to read between the lines and see that the Seahawks didn’t trust Carroll’s decades of experience when making their decision. In turn, the Seahawks will be hiring a new head coach, one who will have to prove themselves all over again.