With the Las Vegas Raiders firing their special teams and offensive coordinators in the middle of the season, head coach Pete Carroll is running out of scapegoats. The team isn’t doing anything right, and his fingerprints have been all over the offense and defense.
At this point in the season, it’s unlikely the Raiders would fire him during the year. The team can’t deal with another interim head coach controversy. However, it’s looking more and more like this could be a one-and-done situation.
The Raiders appear to have regressed from last year’s team, which is a problem considering Carroll stated before the season that they were pushing to make a run. A season that could’ve been about rebuilding and developing young talent has turned into a wasted year.
Despite that, Carroll still refuses to give young players a bigger role. This could likely be his undoing. According to NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Carroll is officially on the hot seat.
“It means that the win-now coach in Las Vegas has not done very much winning at all,” Rapoport said on “NFL Gameday.” “Certainly puts Pete Carroll in the hot seat in what has been a difficult, difficult season.”
Was Chip Kelly Not Allowed to Run His Offense?
The Raiders paid Chip Kelly handsomely to run the offense. He’s a very experienced playcaller who has proven to be innovative at times. However, the Raiders’ offense was lacking creativity and completely ineffective.
This led to the coach getting fired. One leak suggested that Kelly’s offense was a mess, as he would call plays that weren’t in the game plan.
Now there is conflicting information being leaked. Rapoport reported that people around the NFL were not seeing Kelly’s influence on the offense.
“But based on the views of those who studied the offense and based on those who game-planned against it this season, they don’t believe Kelly was running his own offense at all,” Rapoport wrote. “It was unlike anything Kelly previously had run.
“In fact, defensive coordinators likened the Raiders offense this season more to Shane Waldron’s offense with the Seahawks in 2023, Carroll’s last year with Seattle. Kelly’s trademark creative runs out of shotgun had been dramatically limited. Instead, the blend of Seattle and Las Vegas schemes tilted far more toward the under-center zone scheme Carroll favors.”
Should Raiders Give Carroll Another Year?
The problem with older coaches like Carroll is that they are very much set in their ways. If Rapoport’s reporting is accurate, it would be fair to suggest that Carroll was forcing Kelly to run an offense that he typically wouldn’t run.
It doesn’t make any sense to pay Kelly $6 million a year just to run an offense he doesn’t fully understand. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that the Raiders need to hit the reset button again at head coach.
Carroll is not the right coach to turn around a struggling franchise in the modern NFL. The Raiders need to go and find a young head coach and start a more methodical build. How can the team be confident they’re going to be any better next season with Carroll at the helm? The Raiders are sick of having to find new head coaches, but they also can’t double down on a failed project.
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