Pete Carroll Is Still Going Strong and Setting the Seahawks’ Culture

The 70-year-old coach doesn’t look to be slowing down, and he sees familiar signs around him in Seattle.

RENTON, Wash. — Pete Carroll’s an optimist by nature, especially at this time of year, when so much time is spent on the grass. So maybe his comment shouldn’t have caught me as off-guard as it did last weekend. But really the reason I found myself searching for a follow-up was out of deference for the Seahawks team he and John Schneider built a decade ago.

“This is the fastest team we’ve had,” Carroll said, talking, as usual, at a mile-a-minute pace. “We’re the fastest we’ve been. It shows on the field. You can see it in our pursuit; you can see it in special teams. The depth of competition is like it was two years before the Super Bowl—the depth of the competition. When we had guys that left our roster at the 53, they went all over the league. And with the guys here, I’d think it’ll be like that again.”

For the uninitiated, Carroll and Schneider, who arrived as coach and general manager a dozen years ago, have the construction of a historic defense, and Super Bowl champion, on their résumé.

They had the league’s best scoring defense four years in a row, all while their offense riding shotgun had athletes like Russell Wilson, Golden Tate, Percy Harvin, Jimmy Graham and Marshawn Lynch populating it. So the idea that this Seahawks team, the one coming off a 6–11 season, would be the fastest one that Carroll’s coached? It seemed far-fetched, maybe even absurd, to so much as insinuate.

But Carroll, to his credit, seemed to mean it. I tried to interject with how lightning fast I remembered the 2012, ’13, ’14 and ’15 teams being. He wasn’t having it.

“Yeah, that’s the way you remember it. We’re faster now,” he continued. “We’re running faster right now. That doesn’t mean we’ll play faster. Those guys played lightning fast. You remember the last time we went out with those guys against Denver, it was a ridiculously fast night of playing football. But this team can really run. The receivers can really go, the corners can go, the outside rushers can, the running backs are really fast. You can just tell.”

And the way Carroll explained the difference illustrates where his Seahawks are now, a month before his 13th season (that’s four more than he spent at USC) in Seattle begins.

Carroll fights the notion that this is a new start for everyone within the franchise. He thinks, probably correctly, that most people are simply making a judgment because Wilson isn’t with them anymore. But there is reality in the idea, too. The Seahawks are younger in key spots than they’ve been at any time since the Carroll-Schneider program’s early days. There’s competition everywhere. A promising young wave of prospects will be a big part of this year’s group.

So yeah, Wilson’s gone. Still, there’s plenty of intrigue as to where the Seahawks will go next as their coach approaches his 71st birthday in mid-September. We’ll explain in this week’s GamePlan, as I wrap up the first leg of my travel to NFL training camps.

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Carroll is fighting the notion that this year’s Seahawks team is in a rebuild mode :: Joe Nicholson/USA TODAY Sports

The early days of 2010, ’11 and ’12, when the Legion of Boom units came together, are legend around the franchise—practices that looked like scenes from Braveheart, an edge forged that had a rookie named Richard Sherman going nose-to-nose with Tom Brady in a stunning upset win over a Super Bowl–bound ’11 Patriots team and a chemistry that would be tough for anyone to replicate.

These Seahawks aren’t there yet, to be sure. But to some within the organization, some of what made them who they were feels like it’s coming back. When Carroll and Schneider were hired in 2010, it was because then owner Paul Allen, president Tod Leiweke and general counsel Lance Lopes wanted to turn the roster over, get younger and build a sustainable core of stars. Now, the challenge is to do it again. And there’s a reminder of that in a pretty notable way.

“Not a rebuild,” Schneider said. “It’s just the same attitude we’ve always had. Every position, how are we getting better every single day? And that hasn’t stopped. Now, what you saw happen to us, we had a lot of success with a lot of young people. We were the youngest team ever to win a Super Bowl, right? And then we paid a bunch of dudes, which we needed to. You didn’t want to let people just walk out the door.

“So when you do that, that can take a little bit away from your open-competition stuff. When you’re talking about compete, compete, compete ... well, when you’re paying the No. 1 corner and the No. 1 free safety and the No. 1 strong safety and the No. 1 middle linebacker, it’s kinda like, All right, well, that’s not really an open competition. So you saw us hit a little bit of a wall there.”

That wall’s been coming down for a while. Wilson and linebacker Bobby Wagner were, essentially, just the last bricks in it.

Yes, the Seahawks do have players who are paid and, as such, will play. Jamal Adams is one. DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are two others. But in most other places on the roster there is real, genuine competition. That includes a lot of recently drafted players with high ceilings.

Rashaad Penny’s back as the lead rusher, but rookie Kenneth Walker III is pushing him and will almost certainly find a role on offense. Two rookie tackles, Charles Cross and Abe Lucas, are fighting to start on opening day. Another rookie, corner Coby Bryant, has a good shot to displace either Sidney Jones or Artie Burns as a starting defensive back, and his draft classmate Tariq Woolen could make a first-team push, too. Young linebackers Jordyn Brooks (already a burgeoning star) and Cody Barton are filling the Wagner void. Rookie pass-rusher Boye Mafe is going to play.

And, to be clear, it’d be unfair to expect this crew to suddenly become what Sherman, Wagner, Kam Chancellor, Earl Thomas, K.J. Wright, Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril were. But that’s the whole thing—the expectation from Carroll isn’t they’ll be that. He wants his next group to have its own identity and reach for the bar that the last group set. The good news is there are now players in place who could be around a while.

“Every year, we start up and we start all over again. Every time, we do,” Carroll said. “We give it everything we can to be as jacked up, as juiced, as competitive as possible. It ain’t different in that regard. But because there are some new faces that have a chance to emerge, there’s some newness about that. Like Coach [John] Wooden said a long time ago, It’s the players that adjust the philosophy because they’re new and they’re different. We’re doing the same stuff that we believe in, that we always thought was gonna win for us.

“And we can just see the excitement of guys trying to latch on and capture the opportunity.”

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For all the other position battles, nowhere is that more the case than at quarterback.

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Drew Lock’s still new here. He hasn’t lost a game as a Seahawk. He hasn’t thrown a pick as a Seahawk. So take his comments with that in mind.

“It’s just a very well-run, well-formed organization as a whole,” he said. “You feel that here. Coming here, this place is amazing, brings back a little joy in football when you come here, the energy around everyone out there. You can tell Pete’s been doing this for a very long time at an extremely high level. It’s just a special place. It’s a place you don’t want to leave, I’ll tell you that. This place is awesome.

“And the guys being here, Tyler’s been here forever, being able to lean on him. Rashaad Penny. There’s plenty of guys here on this team that know what it takes to win big football games. That says a lot. It’s a special team.”

That, of course, doesn’t sound like a guy describing a team that went 6–11 last year. And Carroll and Schneider certainly hope it’s indicative of the foundation that was built here remaining in place, even with a lot of players whose names will one day be displayed permanently in the stadium now gone.

Really, you can start the quarterback conversation there. Wilson got to grow up with that foundation around him, and that, he’d tell you himself, was an immense part of both his development and ability to get to Super Bowls in his second and third NFL seasons. All the same, it’d help Lock or Geno Smith, whoever wins Carroll’s quarterback derby, to have that, too.

Carroll told me he’d take his time with the decision, and that Smith had maintained his lead from the spring early in camp. But he also added that, in time, Lock would get his shots to run the first-team offense.

For now, this quarterback battle is wide open—another similarity to the old days, in how the Seahawks landed Wilson in the first place. Back then, they kept throwing darts at the board at the quarterback position. It took cycling through Matt Hasselbeck, Charlie Whitehurst, Tarvaris Jackson and Matt Flynn to get to Wilson; that’s where Lock and Smith are, the first two post-Wilson darts to be thrown, each with unfulfilled potential, and an appreciation for the opportunity they’re getting. For Smith, it’s a chance he thought he might never get against after washing out with the Jets.

“And I think that’s the hardest part,” he said. “It’s working hard and competing and studying and grinding out the film and always being on top of your stuff, and never knowing if the opportunity would come. A lot of comes back to faith, just having faith, and also having confidence in your own ability with things you believe you can do. And yeah, I did; I wondered.”

So he appreciates the chance to compete for the job, and Lock does, too, after working with three offensive coordinators over three years in Denver, having COVID-19 strike as he was trying to make the jump from his first and second year, and seeing the coach and general manager who drafted him leave the building. A little different than Smith, and being just 25, Lock had confidence that another shot would come.

That part, and the divide in age aside (Smith is 31), the quarterbacks’ stories have similarities in that both were second-round picks, both were raw coming from spread systems in college and both got only truncated chances at becoming full-time starters in the place they were drafted—with shorter leashes than first-rounders generally get.

“I feel like we both have a grasp of this game and what goes into it. Not just the football side, the feelings, the emotions, the Mondays after a game,” Lock explained. “We’ve both felt very similar things and we can both appreciate each other for that. Being able to talk to him after plays, being able to talk to him after practice, my mindset and his mindset I know is the same.”

Lock said the experience of sitting behind Teddy Bridgewater last year was important for him, in that it taught him to see the game differently—“Teddy sees the field extremely well; Teddy knows where the ball needs to go”—and learn that playing a more conservative, judicious game was necessary at a level where he couldn’t out-talent everyone.

Smith, on the other hand, had the benefit of sitting behind Wilson, and took plenty from it, getting another layer of education in how to prepare, having already learned a lot from backing up Philip Rivers and Eli Manning before that. He also bonded with Wilson (“he’s really my brother outside of football”), and their families still hang out. He’s every bit aware, in every way, of the size of the shoes he and Lock are trying to fill.

“That’ll never leave here. I think what he did here was just so phenomenal over the course of 10 years, just the things that he did, being the winningest quarterback, winning a Super Bowl, going to two Super Bowls, countless playoff games, his leadership, all of that,” Smith said. “His impact will always be here in Seattle.”

And while acknowledging that, Smith reiterated that he and Lock are “for sure” being underestimated by the football-watching public.

“The only way to prove or disprove those things is to go out there and play well,” he said. “Yeah, that’s something that’s out there. And I don’t think it’ll change until we change it.”

Really, you could say that goes for the whole team.

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There were questions over the last year, as it became apparent that Wilson might not be long for Seattle, about whether Carroll had the stomach to work through a quarterback change. The reality is it can take time, and it does represent a relatively significant reset for any franchise. Plus, Carroll’s not only the oldest coach currently in the NFL, but he’s one of the oldest ever.

That said, there aren’t many signs that he’s slowing down yet. Smith pointed out how on Fridays in-season—Fast Fridays, as the Seahawks call them—Carroll still rips off six 100-yard sprints. “It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen,” Smith said. “I’m out there shooting hoops; he’ll try and D me up. He doesn’t act his age at all.”

Likewise, Schneider said he doesn’t know how many years Carroll has left with the franchise, but he is sure the guy doesn’t look like a 70-year-old. “He’s got the pedal down all the time,” Schneider said.

Carroll smirked when I asked him how much longer he’d coach.

“I don’t even know,” he said. “I’m on a five-year plan. Five years.”

Even if he picked the number out of a hat, the message from it was clear—with the pedal down, Carroll still feels like he’s got a lot left in the tank.

And if he’s right about his feeling on the young players on the roster, he’ll probably want to stick around a while.

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Campbell is entering his second season as the Lions’ coach :: Junfu Han/ USA TODAY Sports

MORE FROM THIS WEEK

1) I loved Dan Campbell’s speech to his team about putting them in pads during Hard Knocks. Here it is: “I had a couple of you look at me like What the f---, why are we going live? I got it. Here’s what I need, man. I need you to trust me. I swear to God, I’m not a lunatic, I swear to you. And if I absolutely knew we could get to where we need to get without ever putting pads on, I’d do it. I swear to you. But also for us as a team to get better—defensively, what is the essence of what we do, man? What are the two things? Pursuit and tackle. Pursuit and tackle. Man, if you don’t work on tackling, if we don’t work on run after catch, making a move, what are we doing? And we finally get to Week 8 and we come alive because we’ve gotten enough reps? That’s what I’m doing, I swear, man. I don’t want to put anyone in jeopardy. But we have to do it, man, I believe it. We’re not gonna do it every day. I’m gonna give an illustration tonight. I got a plan. I swear to you. All I think about is you guys, that’s all I think about, man. That’s all I f---ing think about is you guys and how I set you up for the best possible advantage I can give you for the season, I swear to you, man. I just need you trust me, that’s all. Please.”

Why do I love it? Because Campbell’s not saying whether he’s right or wrong. He’s expressing his belief and giving his players the why on his decision. And so, at the very least, they know.

2) To me, it also highlights a noticeable divide in how teams handle the early days of training camp. Some teams are relatively slow in ramping things up (the Browns one), relying on sports-science data in getting their guys ready for the rigors of the season. On the flip side, there are teams that were flying out of the gate (the Bills are an example), looking to get as much competition in as they could. The truth is, with the new rules being what they are, I think everyone is still figuring all this stuff out, and there’s probably not enough evidence one way or the other to draw any sweeping conclusions on what’s best.

3) Tom Brady’s scheduled 10-day (or so) absence from Buccaneers camp is interesting, because we don’t have precedent for someone his age, with his level of experience, preparing for the grind of an NFL fall and winter. Were it a younger player, I could see being concerned with what it might do to his season, with this happening so close to the opener. With Brady? I don’t know how much of a difference it’ll make, if it makes one at all.

4) The Jets’ offensive-line machinations of the last month really do color why general manager Joe Douglas was so intrigued with NC State offensive tackle Ickey Ekwonu, before he, coach Robert Saleh & Co. decided to take Cincinnati cornerback Sauce Gardner No. 4 in this year’s draft. Simply put, where offensive tackle Mekhi Becton was from both a developmental and health standpoint played a part in the temptation being there to get more line help. The former manifested in Becton flipping to the right side from the left tackle spot he was drafted to play. The latter manifested with his injury last week. And so the Jets had to fork over a two-year, $22 million deal to bring in Duane Brown and will go with the 36-year-old Brown and journeyman George Fant at tackle.

5) I’d expect the trade market to ramp up a little bit after the first full set of preseason games. Toward the end of my camp trip, I touched base with a few GMs with a surplus at certain positions. Usually a preseason game or two can cement the idea that a player or two might be expendable. That’s the case with the two Dolphins receivers (Preston Williams and Lynn Bowden Jr.) we mentioned in the Monday column, who are at least, in part, out there because Miami signed ex-Cowboy Cedrick Wilson Jr. before the opportunity to pair Tyreek Hill with Jaylen Waddle surfaced later in March, creating a logjam at the position.

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AND ONE THING TO LEAVE YOU WITH

Happy retirement to James White, who walked away from football at 30 years old on Thursday.

White’s another Patriot who will never be in anyone’s Hall of Fame conversation, but is a great illustration of how the New England machine kept going for 20 years—a smart, tough, versatile, dependable player who filled a very specific role in the offense. Just as Troy Brown passed the slot receiver job down to Wes Welker, who passed it down to Julian Edelman and Danny Amendola, White was part of a similar lineage as the team’s passing-down back, having followed Kevin Faulk, Danny Woodhead and Shane Vereen.

How well he played the role was obvious in his numbers. He’s the rare back who had more career catches (381) than he did rushes (319), and the skill he had to pull it off was most apparent when it mattered most. He had 14 catches for 110 yards in the Patriots’ miracle comeback win in Super Bowl LI, scoring the only walk-off touchdown in Super Bowl history. Somehow, he also had another playoff game with more receptions (15 catches against the Chargers in the 2018 divisional round, on the way to winning Super Bowl LIII).

The kind of torch-carrying White did, to me, is one of the more impressive facets of the New England dynasty, in that it had specific roles within the offense, and the defense, that it always found a way to fill. Even better, White was an incredible culture fit too, eventually becoming one of the players in the locker room that the Patriots needed to sustain their success.

It’d be nice, of course, if White got to walk away on his own terms (an old hip injury that wouldn’t go away was a part of this). But regardless, he’ll walk away with plenty to be proud of.

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