Pete Carroll may be feeling the heat of a level of losing he’s never experienced and a level of incompetence that may not sit well with upper management.
The former Seattle Seahawks head coach has had a wretched first (and only?) season in charge of the Las Vegas Raiders, and for the second time in a few weeks he’s resorted to firing an assistant coach. Before you guess, offensive line coach Brennan Carroll has kept his job for now.
Just a couple of weeks ago, it was special teams coordinator Tom McMahon.
Following a pathetic 24-10 loss to the Cleveland Browns in Shedeur Sanders’ first start, offensive coordinator Chip Kelly is out.
As noted in this ESPN article, “Las Vegas was 30th in points (15.5), total yards (269), rushing yards (81.4), EPA (minus-61.40) and red zone efficiency (46.2%), respectively.” To make these stats more damning, Kelly was reportedly the NFL’s highest paid offensive coordinator, having come over from college football after winning a national championship with Ohio State’s loaded offense.
If you recall last year’s offensive coordinator search, Kelly was reportedly interviewed by the Seahawks before he took the Ohio State job and Seattle ultimately hired Ryan Grubb, who crashed and burned back to the college ranks. Safe to say that after his first season with the Philadelphia Eagles, it’s been all downhill for Kelly at an NFL level.
Meanwhile, the Raiders started uphill with what now looks like a “Week 1 randomness” upset on the road over the New England Patriots, and have since barrel rolled into a sewage lagoon at 2-9. They’re all but guaranteed to once again be last in the AFC West, while the No. 1 overall pick is a possibility given their remaining schedule and the recent competitiveness of the 1-10 Tennessee Titans (the only other win of Pete’s Raiders tenure).
Carroll famously fired offensive coordinator Jeremy Bates after one season with the Seahawks, but he otherwise never ousted any of his assistants midseason. Moves such as this with a record he’s never experienced before may be an indicator that he’s pushing any button to avoid his own departure.
Here’s what Silver and Black Pride’s Bill Williamson had to say following the latest Raider embarrassment:
This team is just not competing. They haven’t won since Week 6 and they have been beaten by double digits six times. They have scored 10 or fewer points in five times. The Raiders clinched their fourth straight losing season in the process of the Browns’ defeat.
They just can’t compete. It’s just all so bad.
Two more losses will give Carroll his worst ever season as either a college or NFL head coach. With the Los Angeles Chargers and Denver Broncos coming up next, I’d say he’s two weeks away from hitting that 11-loss mark.
The next question is whether or not he’ll bench Geno Smith, who has been a bottom-of-the-NFL quarterback by most advanced metrics this year and apparently is taking his frustrations out on Raiders fans.
