With fans locking in their bold predictions for the upcoming Las Vegas Raiders season starting this weekend, the team will be led by head coach Pete Carroll, who took a gap year after departing from the Seattle Seahawks after many years with them. As Carroll looks to build a culture with the Raiders in his first season, he would give insight into what he learned on his sabbatical.
In the latest piece from NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated, he would interview Carroll about his break from coaching football and spoke about how he honed in on the central aspect of being a “great teammate.” While that has always been an aspect he's emphasized, he explains how he views it “differently than ever,” plus noticed some other points schematically.
“Probably as important as anything that I’m teaching is how to be a great teammate,” Carroll said. “I don't believe there’s anything more important than that. I’ve always talked about it and shown examples—Bill Russell coming in and talking to our team—but I see it differently than ever. And every player has a responsibility: This is what he can do for his team. So we’ve emphasized the hell out of that, and try to get more from themselves and how they have to give of themselves to be a really good teammate.”
“You can see how the trends of plays and concepts and principles are so evident,” Carroll continued. “And we have to stop those from happening [on defense], we don't need those trends to continue, we have got to put a frickin’ stake in the ground right here and stop the ways things are going.”
Raiders' Pete Carroll on the “pursuit of passion” in regards to coaching
With the Raiders under Carroll having big expectations, another point he learned about himself during his year-long break was that he was not finished coaching football. He also expressed to Breer how he has “the pursuit of passion” in coaching football at the highest level with a lot of intensity.
“I took a good look at what it was like to be retired, and I can do that later,” Carroll said. “The way I can phrase it to you is the pursuit of passion, getting back into doing things at this level, with this kind of intensity, trying to help people do things that they’ve never done before, there's just so much there.”
At any rate, Carroll takes over a Las Vegas team that is looking to improve after finishing with a 4-13 record, putting the team last in the AFC West. The Raiders open the season on Sunday, Sept. 7, against the New England Patriots.
