The Seattle Seahawks are No. 21 in Yahoo Sports’ 2024 offseason power rankings. (Taylor Wilhelm/Yahoo Sports)
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Like Super Bowl XLIX, Bill Belichick got the best of Pete Carroll again.
Carroll’s split with the Seattle Seahawks was overshadowed this offseason by Belichick being let go by the New England Patriots, but Carroll deserved flowers too. He won 137 regular-season games as head coach of the Seahawks. He took Seattle to two Super Bowls, winning one. That was the first Super Bowl title in franchise history. Only three coaches have won a college national championship and a Super Bowl: Jimmy Johnson, Barry Switzer and Carroll.
Carroll wanted to stay. Seahawks ownership was ready for a change. It surprised nearly everyone.
“I did not see this coming,” former Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman said on his podcast. “I did not see them letting Pete go.
“It was a situation where I expected them to let Pete coach as long as he wanted to, and be around as long as he wanted to. He instilled an incredible culture in Seattle.”
It was a seismic event because, like Belichick and the Patriots, the Seahawks hadn’t experienced much success before Carroll. They had seven playoff wins and no championships before Carroll, and 10 playoff wins and one title with him.
“We weren’t anything. And then we were something,” Carroll said, via the Tacoma News Tribune. “We made something special.”
Carroll defined the Seahawks for more than a decade. It will be jarring to see someone else leading them.
Mike Macdonald will have a hard time replacing Carroll, but he was an exciting hire. He had two very good seasons running the Baltimore Ravens’ defense and players rave about his football mind. At age 36, Macdonald has a youthful energy (Carroll is 72, though energy was never a problem for him). Carroll was great, but…
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