Pete Carroll out as Seahawks coach, will remain with Seattle in advisory role
Pete Carroll's historic run as Seahawks head coach is over.
Carroll will no longer be Seattle's head coach, the team announced Wednesday. However, he will remain in the organization in a different role.
Carroll joined the Seahawks in 2010, helping them become title contenders within a few seasons. He led them to their first championship in 2013, winning Super Bowl XLVIII over the Broncos 43-8. The Seahawks repeated as NFC champs a year later, but fell to the Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX 28-24.
In Carroll's 14 years at the helm, he went 137-89-1 and reached the postseason 10 times. After making the playoffs in 2022, the Seahawks fell short in 2023 despite their 9-8 record.
Former Seahawks defensive coordinator and current Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn is considered to be a strong candidate to succeed Carroll, who at 72 was the NFL's oldest active head coach.
If this marks the end of Carroll's coaching career, it puts a cap on one of the best in all of football. Carroll joined the Seahawks following a dominant nine-year run at USC that brought the program back to prominence, winning two national titles and playing for a third. He's one of only three coaches to ever win a national title in college and a Super Bowl as a head coach, with Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer being the other two.
Carroll began his head coaching career with the Jets in 1994. He was fired after one season in which New York went 6-10. He got his second head coaching job in 1997, replacing Bill Parcells as the Patriots' head coach. New England made the postseason in his first two years in New England, but Carroll was fired after an 8-8 season in 1999.
When Carroll returned to the NFL in 2010, he quickly helped remake the Seahawks. By this third year on the job, the Seahawks were among the NFL's best teams, going 11-5 in 2012 behind the strong play of their "Legion of Boom" defense and the emergence of rookie quarterback Russell Wilson. They fell short of the ultimate goal though, losing to the Falcons in the divisional round of the playoffs.
Both the defensive unit and quarterback progressed even more in 2013, helping Seattle go 13-3 to win the NFC West over its hated rival, the 49ers. The two teams renewed their rivalry in an instant classic in the 2013 NFC Championship Game, which the Seahawks won 23-17 to reach the Super Bowl for just the second time in franchise history. Seattle defeated the Broncos two weeks later.
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The Seahawks were once again among the NFL's best in 2014, going 12-4 and defending their title as NFC champs. They were a yard away from taking a last-minute lead in Super Bowl XLIX, but the Seahawks opted not to hand the ball to star running back Marshawn Lynch and instead let Wilson throw on second down. Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted the pass, sealing the win for New England.
Seattle never came that close to winning a Super Bowl again under Carroll, failing to make it back to the NFC Championship Game after 2014. But the Seahawks remained one of the NFL's most consistent teams, reaching the postseason in 2015 and 2016. They had five consecutive 10-win seasons between 2012-16, marking the first time any Seahawks coach accomplished that feat. They also boasted the league's best scoring defense between 2012-15, becoming the first team in the Super Bowl era to lead the league in that stat for that long.
In Carroll's final seasons with the team, he and Wilson reportedly had disagreements over the handling of the offense, among other things, leading to the quarterback being traded to the Denver Broncos following Seattle's 7-10 season in 2021.
In 2022, not only did the Seahawks beat Wilson in his Broncos debut, but Carroll led Seattle to the playoffs with Geno Smith at quarterback.
Over 18 seasons as an NFL head coach, Carroll has a 170-120-1 regular-season record. He's one of just 16 coaches to record that many regular-season wins in league history. When you add his 11 career playoff victories, Carroll is one of 14 coaches with 180 combined regular-season and postseason wins in NFL history.
*All stats courtesy of FOX Sports Information & Research