When the Las Vegas Raiders hired Pete Carroll as their 23rd head coach in franchise history, it drew mixed reactions from around the NFL.
One of the most successful head coaches in Seattle Seahawks history, Carroll was relieved of his duties in early 2024 after his teams gradually lost their effectiveness in the post-Legion of Boom era. Carroll transitioned to teaching back at USC in 2024 before Mark Davis and company called him up, hoping to provide a steady, veteran leader to a franchise that has been on the coaching carousel for years.
Would a head coach 40 years older than his starting quarterback be able to relate to a team that has been running wild and loose for years, even if said quarterback was Carroll's hand-picked successor to Russell Wilson back in Seattle? So far, the answer has been no, with Bill Simmons outright questioning if Carroll is simply too old to be an effective NFL head coach on his namesake podcast.
“We need to have a real convo about Pete Carroll because they are one of the three worst-coached teams. They do really stupid game management stuff; they seem unprepared. They're sloppy, I don't know how they beat the Pats in Week 1 because I think the Pats are just better than them,” Simmons explained.
“Maybe we are really pushing it when we get to the mid-70s. Like it might be too much, and I only can judge it from the people in our life that have been that age, and you have a few relatives in that age or higher, and it's just like I don't know if they should be running an NFL team against people who are like in their 30s like Ben Johnson.”
Now granted, are there any bright spots to the Raiders' season so far? Sure, Maxx Crosby remains one of the better players in the NFL, Jamal Adams has been surprisingly solid transitioning to linebacker, and Ashton Jeanty has turned the corner after early questions during the preseason, going for 128 yards in his fourth professional game. But sitting at 1-3 with a point differential of -22, the Raiders are long shots to make the playoffs for the fourth year in a row and may just be looking for their sixth head coach in five seasons next spring if Simmons' assertion proves true.
