Pete Carroll is making the wrong kind of news — and history.
According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Pete Carroll never fired an assistant coach in-season during his entire 14-year run with the Seattle Seahawks. Now, in a brutal first season with the Las Vegas Raiders, he has fired two coordinators in just over two weeks, underscoring how far things have spiraled in his new job.
Schefter dropped the tidbit on The Pat McAfee Show.
The latest move came Sunday night, when the Raiders fired offensive coordinator Chip Kelly just hours after a 24-10 home loss to the Cleveland Browns that dropped Las Vegas to 2-9 and featured 10 sacks of quarterback Geno Smith.
Pete Carroll Fires 2 Raiders Coordinators in Just Over 2 Weeks
Carroll’s first in-season firing as Raiders head coach came on November 7, when Las Vegas dumped special teams coordinator Tom McMahon one day after a 10-7 loss to the Denver Broncos on Thursday Night Football. The Raiders elevated assistant coach Derius Swinton II to interim special teams coordinator.
At the time, the move looked like a targeted response to repeated special teams miscues. Two weeks later, it looks more like the start of a full-on coaching shake-up.
On Sunday, the Raiders followed up a 33-16 loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night with a 24-10 defeat to the Browns, in which Myles Garrett and the Cleveland defense terrorized Smith and the Raiders’ battered offensive line. Las Vegas allowed 10 sacks and managed just 268 yards of offense.
Within hours, Carroll informed Kelly he was out as offensive coordinator. Kelly, who returned to the NFL after winning a national title as Ohio State’s OC and reportedly became the league’s highest-paid coordinator at around $6 million per year, never got the Raiders’ offense on track. Under his watch, Las Vegas has ranked near the bottom of the NFL in points, total yards, rushing production and red-zone efficiency.
Quarterback Geno Smith has thrown as many interceptions as touchdowns, and rookie running back Ashton Jeanty has struggled behind a line ranked near the bottom of the league.
Adam Schefter: Carroll Never Did This in Seattle
On November 24’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show, Schefter put Carroll’s decisions in stark perspective while discussing his future in Las Vegas. The ESPN insider noted that Carroll “never fired a coach midseason in his entire time in Seattle”, then contrasted that with the Raiders firing McMahon and Kelly in a little over two weeks.
Schefter added that “nobody seems to be safe right now” on Carroll’s staff, calling the Raiders’ season “disappointing in a lot of different ways” and pointing to the 10-sack loss to the Browns as the kind of performance that forces every aspect of the operation to be questioned.
That makes this not just another coordinator firing, but a clear break from how Carroll operated with the Seahawks, where he was known for stability and rarely made in-season staff changes during a run that included two Super Bowl appearances and a championship.
What It Means for the Raiders — and How Seahawks Fans Might See It
For the Raiders, the optics are simple: Year 1 under Pete Carroll is already in crisis mode. Las Vegas sits at 2-9, in last place in the AFC West, with an offense that hasn’t matched the investment at quarterback, running back and coordinator.
Schefter pointed out that teams usually do not fire head coaches after just one season, especially one with Carroll’s resume. But he also suggested that the depth of the Raiders’ problems could test that norm if things do not improve.
From a Seahawks perspective, the contrast is jarring. Seattle fans watched Carroll preside over one of the NFL’s most stable cultures from 2010 through 2023, with relatively little public staff drama compared to what’s now happening in Las Vegas. Seeing him fire two coordinators midseason — something he never did in Seattle, per Schefter — will only fuel the conversation about whether the Seahawks moved on at the right time when they hired Mike Macdonald in early 2024.
Carroll’s legacy in Seattle is secure, but this Raiders season is turning into a very different chapter: one defined by weekly scrutiny, coordinator changes and an offense searching for answers.
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