Pete Carroll became the NFL’s oldest head coaching hire this past offseason when he was brought in by the Raiders. His return to the sidelines has not gone well, though, and it remains to be seen if a second Vegas season will be in store. 
Carroll has already dismissed two coordinators – Tom McMahon (special teams) and Chip Kelly (offense) – this month. The Raiders sit at 2-10 at this point, and plenty of work will need to be done in the spring to improve the current roster. At 74, Carroll may not been seen as a strong fit for a rebuilding process.
The Super Bowl winner took a three-year contract to join the Raiders. Expectations for a relatively strong debut season were based in large part on the success Carroll had with quarterback Geno Smith. The two were reunited when Smith was acquired via trade, but that move has not yielded the desired results. Smith’s 13 interceptions lead the NFL, and finding consistent production on offense has proven to be a challenge.
Vegas will enter free agency and the draft this spring with questions about the team’s long-term outlook under center, but by that point another change on the sidelines may have taken place. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport notes (video link) Carroll is on the hot seat. A Saturday Rapoport report detailed the extent to which Carroll influenced the Raiders’ offense in 2025 and the tension it caused with Kelly. With notable firings having been made in-season, it will be interesting to see if Carroll remains in place for next year.
Instability on the sidelines and in the front office has been a defining characteristic of the Raiders during their time in Vegas. The team will look for a period of consistency with general manager John Spytek and minority owner Tom Brady (whose voice carries more weight than his title would imply) through the remainder of this season and beyond. Replacing Carroll would constitute a swing and miss from that duo while also continuing an unwanted trend of short HC tenures.
Since Jon Gruden‘s 2021 resignation, the Raiders have cycled through Rich Bisaccia, Josh McDaniels, Antonio Pierce and now Carroll as head coaches. A positive end to the season would quiet the talk surrounding a potential switch on the sidelines, although Vegas does not face high expectation in that respect.
Rehire Gruden then
I would give Carroll another chance though
Maybe Lane Kiffin is available and will drag out a decision!
C’mon, man, next season is only 10 months away… Not enough time for Kiffin…
The advantage is that it only takes him a second to leave, and he might do it early.
Hey, according to Kiffin’s own quote, he called Carroll for advice and Pete told him to go for it. So much for the “wise, veteran perspective.”
Been there done that.
At this point, it couldn’t be any worse if the Raiders stole a page from the Fan Controlled Football League and just let the fans vote on play calls. I’m not joking.
You don’t say?
Mark Davis’ two favorite moves as an owner are paying famous people to coach the team and then paying famous people to not coach the team anymore.
Maybe he can get two birds stoned and re-hire Gruden to another massive deal.
Throwing Pete under the bus is the easy thing to do but even John Madden couldn’t make a winner out of this roster.
It was a bad idea, made much worse by giving him nothing to work with.
What about Ditka? DA Raidersss!
I think that’s about as likely as Belichick and Brady reuniting…lol.
I’m not sure Carroll has it anymore, but nobody is winning with that roster.
haha. not Geno Smiths fault at all. dude leads the league in turnovers and is arguably one of the worst QBs in the league. but it’s Pete Carroll 😂😂
Geno hasn’t looked good this year, but it’s also very hard to play quarterback when you don’t have a line that protects you or receivers who get open.
“Oh Carroll, don’t let him steal yo heart away… I’m gonna learn to dance if it takes me all night and day…”
Chuck Berry
Two solid Tight Ends, but nothing in the way of dynamic WRs. A leaky OL, and then there is Jeanty.
Jeanty and Bowers are the Raiders future, but they have to compliment these guys. Give Bowers someone to take the pressure off, and give Jeanty an OL to create him some holes. The rest will take care of itself with a competent QB and OC.
Free Agency isn’t the way to go to build a team, but it can definitely help if you bring in the right pieces that help change around the losing culture.
They have a laundry list of needs, but with a really good draft, and a smart, methodical free agency they will most definitely look much closer.
Trade down a few spots and Draft the WR from ASU Tyson in first round, and select Shelton the OT from Penn State in the 2nd or the best OL available. Then, build from there with another 2nd Round pick from the trade down, and 3-4 more available picks in the 3rd and 4th Rounds. Add experienced talent in the latter rounds to help build your depth, and that should be a good start to helping this dumpster fire put out the flames…
I am not genius myself, but it really does not seem all that difficult to at least surround your core talent with more young talented players and start to build up your foundation moving forward.
Also, believe in the players you draft, and empower them to succeed. Bech getting one target a game is absolutely absurd…
They need to spend the next 2 drafts building the trenches. OL in 1st round at minimum this season, maybe next as well (as long as they aren’t missing on obvious best available type talent).
Smart , Raiders ? Have you been following this team 🤷♂️
Carol has not been as decent head coach as he has been over the last 5 to 7 years. Time to go.
Nobody notices the real reason the Silver and Black turned into bottom-feeders:
Tom Brady.
Raiders were bottom-feeding long before Brady got involved with them. Might as well rename them the Las Vegas Sturgeons.
Well, there was the fumble that they generously called an incomplete pass…
Chuck isn’t wrong.
Time for a younger HC. There are some really good assistant coaches out there…think outside the box. Stop recycling older former HC’s…there’s a reason they are former HC coaches….
Well, Raiders did no better without Chip Kelly. Offense didn’t change much at all. Why bring in Chip at $6M per year and then tie his hands and not let him run the offense he wanted to install? Makes zero sense. You put your son in charge of the O-Line to make sure Kelly doesn’t do what he wants to do and his son is in on every meeting, reporting back to daddy if Chip waivers at all from Pete’s offense.
It’s pathetic.
His son moves JPJ off center to guard, when he was one of the best centers in the NFL. Just flat out stupid and gets him hurt.
Fire them all and start over.
It is mind-blowing to me that they gave Chip Kelly $6 million. Just flushing money down the crapper.
I don’t know. It’s hard to judge whether that decision was good when Kelly wasn’t running what he wanted to run. I do still think that the Raiders were going to be bad anyway, given the roster, but a coach that has such a specific system like Kelly needs to be able to run his offense his way.
I personally think that it was a tad wasteful to do that without a rookie-after all, Kelly’s last position was as a successful college coordinator, so he should be able to work with a college QB recently inducted into the league. Instead, they butchered his offense (or, at least, interfered with it) and gave him a QB that fit the head coach better than the OC. If they wanted Smith as a bridge, and wanted Carroll’s preferred offense, they shouldn’t have hired Kelly. It’s not like this was a reclamation project, anyway-Kelly just won a title at Ohio State. He was there because they wanted him. If they wanted Kelly’s offense, they should have allowed him to pick his coaches, run his offense, and gotten a QB that could suit it before picking a quarterback of the future. Perhaps Kelly was on board with Geno, that’s possible, but it definitely didn’t look like it on gameday.
If you’re going to hire an experienced OC, you need to respect his system enough to structure your offense around him. Otherwise, you don’t hire him. Again, I’m not saying that Kelly was even the right hire; I’m just saying that, if you do hire him, you need to buy in to what he’s going to do.
I don’t disagree with anything you’re saying, I’m just blown away that coordinators are making so much money. I guess I didn’t realize how much salaries for coaches had exploded. iirc, Daboll was making $5 million a year as a HC. Paying even more than that for just a coordinator seems crazy to me, especially for a guy who was ran out of San Francisco a decade ago.
Definitely fair. I suppose that’s what it took to convince Kelly to leave a great situation with low pressure to a strenuous one with a ton of it. You’re right, though, it’s a lot. On the other hand, it’s odd to think that everyone in that offensive room probably makes more than the coach trying to discipline them.
Davis seemed ready to simply throw money at this Brady-driven upgrade. Obviously that didn’t work, and really, he should have known better. These things take time, not just a bunch of big names. There needs to be a fit. And, if you’re hiring an older head coach who’s had questions about his remaining coaching prowess, you should probably be concerned when he starts installing his kids as important staff members and crowding your $6 million coordinator.
This is only me speculating, but I believe they paid Chip what they did because he was Brady’s succession plan at Head Coach. He might’ve even been his preferred choice, I don’t know. However Pete got hired, I’m starting to believe Pete had different ideas. Maybe he saw himself coaching beyond three years or felt he could groom one of his children for the role, but there is a clear disconnect in the organization.
What I do know is reports have came out stating Kelly was trying to call plays that weren’t even installed in the offense and, true or not, those reports had to come from one of the Carrolls. It doesn’t benefit anyone else to leak information like that. The Raiders have an enormous problem though, again.
Those are interesting points, and actually I think they’re pretty plausible. I think Carroll definitely wants to hold on longer than anyone else planned, for sure. It always seemed like the organization saw him as more akin to Reich in Stanford than Vermeil in St. Louis, but Pete obviously disagrees.
Raiders trying to make the Jets look good?
I think you meant Kirk Cousins. The Jets now have an incredible 2 takeaways in 12 games.
rest of the league is hoping the raiders keep Pete for a couple more years
I got the shocker of the shocks,PETE CARROLL IS GOING TO COACH PENN ST AND THERES A GUY COMING OUT OF RETIREMENT TO COACH THE RAIDERS HIS NAME MIKE MCCARTHY. just watch The wizard.
Pete Carroll’s reunion with Russ Wilson is the last missing piece of his legacy.
Marshawn Lynch would like to have a word about that…lol.
How pissed is Antonio Pierce?
Pissed, but probably not as pissed as he would be without the settlement for his $15 million contract after being fired…
Then again, his wife did receive a $7 million payout judgement in a bankruptcy case, so…
Look at that coach group. Holy hell.
Spagnuolo deserves another shot at coaching. Can’t hurt to have a coach with four rings.