“I plan to be coaching this team. … I’m not worn out. I’m not tired.” – Pete Carroll to Seattle Sports 710

Pete Carroll might not be worn out or tired, but his coaching principles sure seem to be. He will never admit it, but the game officially has passed the 72-year-old by and it is time to retire.

Unfortunately, he is not interested in doing so and the only way we will see a new era is if Jody Allen decides she too has seen enough of the withering Carroll regime.

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After the Seahawks lucked out with a 21-20 win in the finale in Arizona – a game in which the defense once again was run all over — Carroll actually said, “I love this team. I love the way that these guys play.”

He said this about a team that featured a bottom-three defense, barely managed to finish above .500 and missed the postseason for the second time in three years – a team with a defense that seemed to tune him out and got only worse as the season wore on.

Carroll’s optimism has jumped the shark, morphing into madness. And it’s time to move on. We can only hope Allen agrees.

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Carroll has one playoff win in the past seven seasons and does not seem close to another, even if he will try to convince everyone otherwise. He clearly lost his team in 2023 – with many defensive players repeatedly not doing what they were coached to do, some showing minimal effort on the field and some of those same seeming apathetic about whether the team won or lost.

Carroll attributed most of that to youth and thinks the Seahawks will be better on experience alone in 2024. He told Seattle Sports 710, “We should grow and we should come together in a more powerful way. This team’s got a future. … It’s an exciting outlook for the future.”

It’s the same claim he has made after pretty much every season, but the signs all say the exact opposite. There is nothing exciting about a team that ranked in the bottom three in pretty much every meaningful defensive category and showed zero signs of improvement for three months.

Carroll clearly has no clue, based on what he said on Seattle Sports 710: “We’re so much better than that (on defense). … I can’t even imagine we went through a whole season and that’s what the result is.”

He’s in denial. If he doesn’t know why they were so terrible, he clearly does not know how to stop them from being terrible. That has been proven for six years now.

Carroll said he wants to keep coaching, but he also seems to understand that might not be his choice. Asked whether he expects to return in 2024, he said, “At this point, I do.”

The coach later told Seattle Sports 710, “I plan to be coaching this team. … I’m not worn out. I’m not tired.”

But he said all of that before meeting with Allen for the annual post-mortem. Seahawks fans should be hoping Allen decides to end the Carroll era after 14 years and find an innovative coach to take this team forward.

Some of these young players need discipline and focus, and they need to be shown there are consequences for not doing their jobs, for not showing effort, for not taking coaching, for not winning, for not making the playoffs, for not winning in the playoffs. The grandfatherly Carroll — never one for discipline — seems incapable of applying the tough love and coaching needed.

Assuming John Schneider would be given full control as Carroll left, the GM would need to decide the coaching direction of the team.

There has been a lot of scuttlebutt about Dan Quinn returning to replace Carroll, which would kind of seem like Jim Mora taking over for Mike Holmgren back in 2008. We’re not fans of the idea. It’s time for a brand-new start, someone unaffiliated with Carroll.

The Seahawks definitely need to fix their defense, but they probably would be better off with an offensive head coach. Five of the last six Super Bowls have been won by offensive coaches. Detroit’s Ben Johnson is the hottest candidate and Houston’s 36-year-old Bobby Slowik also could be a good option.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Allen stays the course for another year and gives Carroll a chance to go out on a high note. That seems the probable course, even if it is not the wise one.

So, hope for change but brace for the potential of another year just as disappointingly lackluster as the last three.

For more on the state of the team and a brief look at the offseason, check out our appearances on Dan Viens’ “Seahawks Forever” podcast and also “HawksZone Rundown” (which was recorded before the season ended).