Category Archives: Coaches

Just like 2017, Carroll needed to replace his offensive coordinator

January 13, 2021 cc Leave a comment

It was not a huge surprise that Pete Carroll fired Brian Schottenheimer on Tuesday. If you had parsed the coach’s words Monday, you heard him say he was going to meet with Schotty and evaluate what went wrong with Seattle’s dead-on-playoff-arrival offense. It sure sounded like there was a chance Carroll might decide to make a switch.

The Seahawks cited “philosophical differences,” which basically means Carroll didn’t think Schotty could fix an offense that melted down the stretch and hit its nadir with a pathetic effort in the 30-20 playoff loss to the beat-up Rams.

This was the best move for Carroll after Schotty helped cost the team two quick playoff outs in three years and the offense deteriorated in 2020 like it did in 2017, when Carroll fired Darrell Bevell and Tom Cable after missing the playoffs.

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Coaches, Contracts

The show goes on, but Schneider and Carroll must improve

January 12, 2021 cc Leave a comment

John Schneider apparently did not want to leave Seattle, as scuttlebutt had intimated, and it is no surprise that Jody Allen gave him a five-year extension (probably with a big pay hike).

So the Schneider-Pete Carroll show continues uninterrupted, 11 years and counting. But they both need to improve their job performance if the Seahawks are ever going to be true contenders again.

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Coaches, Contracts

Offseason prios: Changes at the top before new deals?

January 11, 2021 cc 1 Comment

It came earlier than expected, thanks to an inexcusably bad offense, but the Seahawks’ offseason is here. And it could – perhaps should – be a transformative one, with significant change at the top possibly trumping any personnel moves they make.

The frustration we’ve had with the Seahawks the past couple of years has been over John Schneider’s inability to solve defensive personnel issues (mainly pass rush, which he finally fixed with the trades for Jamal Adams and Carlos Dunlap). As they enter this offseason earlier than expected, the concern has switched to Pete Carroll’s side after coaching cost them yet another playoff game.

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Coaches, Playoffs: L.A. Rams

After offense ‘flatlined,’ Carroll has a decision to make

January 10, 2021 cc 1 Comment

“We kind of flatlined” — Russell Wilson

The Seahawks have all the talent they need on offense, which is why it is so confounding that they went into the tank for the final two months of the season and then put down one of their worst playoff performances in the Pete Carroll era, in a dismal 30-20 loss to the Rams.

It was the nadir of an inexplicable nine-game skid by Brian Schottenheimer, Russell Wilson and company. And the question Carroll absolutely has to ask is whether Schottenheimer deserves another chance or whether Carroll needs to move on to the third OC of Wilson’s career.

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Coaches, Week 2: New England

Ageless Carroll can do a lot on ‘five-year plan’

September 17, 2020 cc Leave a comment

It’s fitting that Pete Carroll and Bill Belichick will set a record for the oldest coaching matchup in NFL history this week – the same week Carroll turned 69 (Belichick is 68).

It’s a great matchup between the NFL’s two best coaches of the past decade, and it begs the age-old question: How much longer will these guys go? Most important to us: How much longer will Carroll coach the Seahawks?

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Coaches, X's & O's

Hawks will keep running, but will Wilson & Schotty be better?

September 6, 2019 cc Leave a comment

As the Seahawks open the season, one of the major points to watch will be the evolution of Russell Wilson and a fully Baldwin-less offense in Year 2 under Brian Schottenheimer.

The Seahawks put a lot of resources (financial and draft) into their passing game in the offseason, which led some to suggest (or hope) they are now building entirely around Wilson and are going to throw the ball all over the yard.

Clearly, people who think Carroll is going to sway from his run-focused approach are dreaming — and not really paying attention. Remember, Carroll is all about that circle of toughness — imposing his will on both sides of the ball.

As Carroll recently told 710 ESPN: “We want to play off the running game. … We want to run the heck out of the football. We love that part of the game, but we love everything that comes off that.

“We hopefully are going to show you a wide-open attack that makes you have to defend the run and makes you have to defend Russell sitting back there bombing footballs. We want to get the ball down the field and attack the heck out of it. That’s a big deal to us.

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Coaches, Injury report

Huard: Conditioning will be more player-specific under new staff

January 28, 2019 cc Leave a comment

As hip injuries mounted for the Seahawks last season — it seemed like half the team had the same problem at one time or another — we figured they would review the issue after the season and see where they needed to adjust their offseason conditioning.

As it turned out, Pete Carroll was no longer hip to his strength staff at all, so he replaced it. Ivan Lewis, Carroll’s former USC assistant, has replaced longtime conditioning coach Chris Carlisle (at USC and Seattle) and apparently will be tasked with tailoring conditioning to the players in a way Carlisle apparently did not.

Per 710 ESPN’s Brock Huard: “This is going to be … much more catered to position-specific, even player-specific, needs, because they cannot have the number of injuries they’ve had. They just cannot have the number of pulls and strains and soft-tissue injuries. So this was, I think, really in response to that. It was a move to get very player- and positional-specific to enhance those guys and try to keep them injury-free as much as they possibly can.”

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Coaches, State of the team

Super Bowl clubs are Hawks’ targets, and it starts at home

January 22, 2019 cc 3 Comments

This Super Bowl matchup is near and dear to the Seahawks’ aching hearts: The division rival the Hawks cannot beat right now vs. the one-time Super Bowl nemesis the Hawks will always regret not beating.

The Rams and Patriots are the teams the Hawks have to figure out how to defeat if they are going to win another Super Bowl under Pete Carroll.

So how do they do that?

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Coaches, Playoffs: At Dallas, X's & O's

Coaches talk third-down failure, but it starts on first two downs

January 11, 2019 cc Leave a comment

Third downs get such a bum rap.

One of these days, we hope, Pete Carroll and his coaches will realize third-down success starts on first down. They never seem to get that, constantly droning on after losses about how third downs ruined their offense.

It was more of the same after the 24-22 playoff loss to Dallas, with Carroll telling anyone who would listen that their failure on 11 of 13 third downs was what did them in — as opposed to any play-calling mistakes on the preceding downs.

Brian Schottenheimer continued the refrain Thursday, telling 710 ESPN: “The biggest issue that we had — and it was kind of the issue for us throughout the course of the year when we struggled – was third down. We weren’t able to convert on third downs. We weren’t able to get momentum going. We’re kind of an offense, because we run the ball and we throw the deep play passes, that when you’re struggling on third down it kind of hurts your ability to get started.”

It’s true the Hawks put themselves in big holes on third down; they averaged third-and-8 and went three-and-out six times in 12 possessions.

But how do you get into trouble on third down? How do you get into a spot that is too challenging to overcome? By messing up on first and second downs. And the Seattle offense finished the season just as poorly as it started it.

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Coaches, Playoffs: At Dallas, State of the team

Carroll’s Hawks will run, but they ‘have to adjust a little bit quicker’

January 8, 2019 cc 1 Comment

“The Seahawks are going to be a running team as long as Pete Carroll is the coach. If you can’t handle that then you probably should pick another team to root for.” — Bob Condotta on Twitter

Condotta is right: Pete Carroll is not going to change his philosophy — or his offensive coordinator. Nor should he.

Unlike some fans, we have no issue with Carroll’s overall tactic of controlling the game with the run and great defense. This is the same philosophy that took the Seahawks to two Super Bowls, and Carroll is very confident it will take them back.

But he will evaluate how the first year with Brian Schottenheimer went, and they hopefully will improve their in-game adjustments so they can avoid the kind of unnecessary playoff loss they just experienced in Dallas.

As Carroll said, “We have to adjust a little bit quicker.”

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