Bear Digest

The danger in assuming Pete Carroll's past success continues

Analysis: The Bears completed an interview Thursday afternoon with Pete Carroll but his great experience and past success might not translate to more winning.

Gene Chamberlain

Pete Carroll has impressive numbers and accomplishments but the Bears have to decide if that's all in the past.
Pete Carroll has impressive numbers and accomplishments but the Bears have to decide if that's all in the past. / Matt Kartozian-Imagn Images
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Of all the announced candidates for Bears coach, the one fans should fear the most is Pete Carroll's.

Carroll interviewed on Thursday and his situation is scary.

This is because it's real, and his successful candidacy would eventually end with a better record for a year or two and nothing more, wasting everyone's time.

This is not to pick on the aged, as I definitely fit in this category myself. Rather, it's simply pointing out two things.

Carroll's success window opened and shut almost a decade ago in Seattle and everyone saw it. However, of all the candidates he is the one most capable of convincing the interviewers he can bring the team back from its malaise.

He's going to be persuasive because of his personality and long track record, even if he can no longer back it up.

The guy's energy alone could convince people he can handle this job. I probably would hire him and don't think he can do it, for crying out loud. He's that convincing.

He is like watching Gary Player in his 80s at a golf course hitting shots and moving around and talking and wearing everyone out with all that enjoyable energy.

Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

I can remember the first NFL combine I ever covered. It was before the league took pity on reporters and moved it all to the convention center. There wasn't even a media workroom.

It was just a small group of reporters standing in the hotel lobby across the street from convention center all day long, chasing down coaches or occasionally agents or players. 

Marty Schottenheimer came out and talked to us. It was the first time I'd ever seen him in person. He had just come off his third straight one-and-done in the playoffs with the Chiefs, sandwiched around one season when he hadn't made the playoffs. It was apparent he wasn't getting it done there anymore.

Yet, he commanded attention with the way he talked. He was a great speaker, very convincing, dynamic, charismatic to the point where he could have successfully run for political office. Very impressive.

It would have been very easy to hear him talk and believe he was going to get it done and finally John Elway was not going to be able to stop him.

Schottenheimer coached for seven more years in the NFL and never won a single playoff game.

In fact, he only got in two more. In his last 11 years as a coach, he didn't win a playoff game and in six of those years he didn't even get into the playoffs. But he had only one record worse than 7-9 in that period.

This is where Carroll was at when he left off. He got fired after 2023 and hadn't won a playoff game since 2016. Every coach's time comes and goes. As Da Coach and someone else important said, "This too shall pass."

The Bears could very easily have listened and bought all of that Carroll positive energy and his entire spiel and they may even consider him a finalist as a result.

Honest Appraisal

Here's what Carroll said about his Seahawks when he retired, or was forced into retirement, via ESPN.com and Brady Henderson.

"We lost our edge really," Carroll said, "the edge to be great, which was really how we ran the football and how we played defense. It wasn't as good as it needed to be.

"You all get tired of me, thinking I'm 3 yards and a cloud of dust. You guys don't get it, and I'm sorry about that. But it's all part of the whole cycle of what you do when you put a football team together, and we weren't as clear in the last couple of years."

Well, if the team stopped running the ball enough or effectively  and playing defense well enough, whose fault was it? GM John Schneider wasn't out there calling plays or defenses in the game, or coaching the team at practice daily to prepare for opponents. Geno Smith wasn't calling the plays or overseeing the team. DK Metcalf? No. Jaxson Smith-Njigba? Just a rookie then. No.

It was Carroll's fault.

Carroll's great thing is providing an edge. It might be his main contribution to a team. They lost their edge and he admitted it. He lost the edge.

Shane! Don't Come Back Shane!

Carroll hired Shane Waldron before Matt Eberflus—to put it bluntly and also crudely—stepped in it. At least Eberflus had the common sense to fire Waldron  after hiring Waldron and did it after nine games and a third straight embarrassing loss.

But Carroll actually kept him on the staff for three years. At least Eberflus had the sense to cut bait halfway through one year.

Waldron had better offensive talent in Seattle because he had a better group of running backs, an experienced quarterback and three dynamic receivers the last year but they were last in the league in time of possession twice and next to last once, and last in total plays run twice, but Carroll waited and kept Waldron.

Somehow Eberflus hired him too.

It's best to put that entire sad chapter in Bears history in the past. Sweep it all into a closet, put a padlock on the door and be done with it.

It's history, like Carroll.

Hiring Carroll would be unlocking and opening that door.

This Bears job search needs to be about moving ahead to someone young, new and very good at their job.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.