Pete's got a new pair of shoes

When Pete Carroll was introduced as Seattle’s head coach 15 years ago, he wore a suit and tie and stood alone behind a podium, speaking for 11 minutes and 45 seconds before he took a single question.

He wore a quarter zip on Monday in Las Vegas. He sat a table next to the Raiders new general manager, John Spytek, and this time Carroll went second and his opening statement lasted 6:28.

Also: The shoes were different.

The Air Monarchs were gone replaced by appropriately black Hokas, which inspired several testimonials and a few jokes on Twitter.

As for his message? Well that remains largely unchanged, which has me increasingly curious about whether Pete is going to be able to do it again. We’ll get to a little more about that, but first, we’ve got some significant news from Carroll’s former employer.

🏈 (Another) new OC 🏈 

The Seahawks hired Klint Kubiak to be their offensive coordinator, which has become something of a dead end in the franchise.

Each of the past six guys to hold that position have wound up being fired by the team. Three of those six were fired after a single season: Greg Knapp (2009), Jeremy Bates (2010) and Ryan Grubb (2024).

Of the past six, Darrell Bevell is the only one to serve more than three seasons in the position.

Klint Kubiak is the son of Gary Kubiak, longtime Broncos backup quarterback who went on to become head coach with both the Texans and the Broncos. He won a Super Bowl with the latter franchise.

In terms of scheme, Klint is inevitably going to be described as part of the Shanahan coaching tree. There is some truth to this. He served on the 49ers staff in 2023 where Kyle was the head coach. Klint was the passing game coordinator. Klay Kubiak, who is Klint’s younger brother, is currently the 49ers offensive coordinator under Kyle. Their father, Gary, has drawn heavily from the tactics of Mike Shanahan, whom he played for in Denver.

However, Klint himself hasn’t spent all that much time coaching with the Shanahans. He’s going to have the quarterback under center much more than we saw this season.

I’m not sure how — of even if — this hiring affects Geno Smith or the decisions that Seattle will make regarding the quarterback.

Klint’s first shot at calling plays came in Minnesota, where he worked with Kirk Cousins in 2021. His second was last year in New Orleans and while the Saints got off to a high-scoring start with Derrick Carr, it didn’t last.

Now the Saints are facing an even more expensive decision about Carr’s future, and I suppose it’s possible — if Seattle saw Carr as an upgrade to Smith — that could be a possibility. However, I do not see Carr as an upgrade to Smith. Still, it’s something to keep in mind.

🏈 Who’s directing Pete Carroll’s latest sequel? 🏈

The question I found most interesting during Carroll’s introduction regarded the delineation of organizational power.

Q: Pete, when you were with the Seahawks, you also had the title of vice president of football operations and final say on roster decisions. Is that a role you envision having similarly here or do you feel like you’re going to defer …

Carroll: “We’re sharing everything. We’re collaborating to the nth degree. We’re going to do this, we’re going to draw the best we possibly have out of each other to make every decision we can make as clear and as sound as possible and we’re going to be able to use our guys that are on top. The success stories of our ownership group is just, it’s unmatchable so we’re going to lean on those guys to help us when we need them. They know. They’re part of this competition, too.

“You’re going to see us, we’re partners in this. That’s the way we did it before. You watched that, if you look at what happened over the 14 years, you know, you wouldn’t have known who was calling what. That’s the way I want it to be it to be, and I know John is on board with that.”

This part was especially interesting to me. Because he’s right. I frequently did not know who called what, and this was not for a lack of trying. I spent a solid 10 years with the Seahawks as my primary focus, first as a newspaper reporter and later as a radio host.

Over that time, I got to know quite a bit about both John and Pete, and I would occasionally get an indication of who served as the primary engine behind a particular decision.

I know that John was the driving force behind the selection of Russell Wilson and the Seahawks considered making the selection in the second round. I also know that Pete was pushing hard for help on the defensive line in 2019 leading up to the selection of L.J. Collier at the end of the first round.

But the Seahawks by and large were good at concealing the motivations and the friction that inevitably occur when it comes to deciding who to employ for the purpose of playing football.

It will be interesting to see how that dynamic plays out with his new team. When the Seahawks hired Carroll, there was no doubt it was his voice, his vision that would guide the direction of the franchise. He was part of the hiring process for the general manager, which is not how that process normally works.

Now, he’s part of a new regime that includes Tom Brady as a minority owner and a general manager in John Spytek, who was hired before him. His three-year contract is shorter than what most coaches get, too.

Prior to Monday’s press conference, I got the sense that the Raiders job isn’t necessarily the one that Carroll wanted so much as the one he could get. I don’t necessarily think that is wrong, but I’m not so certain I’m right anymore, either.

In Las Vegas, Carroll is getting as close as you can to a blank slate in the NFL. There’s no entrenched quarterback. There’s no home-field advantage. Carroll is the fourth head coach the franchise has had since moving from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2019, and that’s not counting Rich Bisaccia who served as the interim coach for 12 games.