Pete Carroll wants a Year 2 as Las Vegas Raiders head coach.
The 74-year-old lead man remains steadfast in his belief he’s the right person to chart a better course for the Silver & Black.
“No, I don’t feel like that at all,” Carroll said during his Monday media availability when broached with does he like he’s coaching for his job. “I really don’t. I’m well beyond that. I don’t feel like that.”
“Well, it’s looking like that’s what’s necessary,” Carroll answered when asked the follow up question of
he’d be willing to oversee a rebuild. “We need to keep working to get better, and that’s in all areas, all aspects of what we’re doing. I came in here thinking that we were going to turn it right away. I really did and anticipated doing that, and that’s not what’s taking place unfortunately.”
Carroll went on to speak about the frustrations the entire team has. He explained he’s “blindly optimistic” and that winning from the jump wasn’t delusions of grandeur. But Carroll noted his work is just getting started.
Good on Carroll for being firm in his beliefs and wanting to return and finish the job.
But that’s not course the Raiders should chart when this 2025 campaign comes to a welcome end. Las Vegas must hit the reset button — again.
This version of Carroll we saw during Monday’s foray is quite the far cry from the boisterous claims of winning a lot of games he made way back in July. And the normally jovial and animated head coach was much more subdued as he stews in the reality of his football team.
But the somber body language and tone is proper from the Raiders lead man.
Because Carroll has a big hand in running the Raiders aground this season.
Las Vegas is 2-12 on the season and are dead last in points scored (196 for an average of 14.0 points per contest) and 25th out of the 32 teams in points allowed (363 for an average of 25.9 points given up per tilt). Carroll’s crew suffered two shutout defeats (twin 31-0 drubbings) with the most recent one this past Sunday. Sprinkled in between all that is the fact Las Vegas is last in third-down defense (opponent’s convert 90 of their 184 attempts for a 48.9 conversion rate) and 28th in third-down offense (converting just 59 of 170 attempts for a paltry 34.7 percent sum).
It’s a trying 2025 campaign where Carroll waxed two of his assistant coaches — first, holdover and special teams coordinator Tom McMahon followed by offensive coordinator Chip Kelly — while his football team plays unprepared, unable to execute, and getting steamrolled by the opposition. Brought in to change the identity and harp on the fundamentals of the game, all Carroll has done is reinforced the Silver & Black calling card of being a get-right game for teams going through their own distinct trails and tribulations. And that 31-0 shellacking at the Philadelphia Eagles was yet another example of the depths of ineptitude the Raiders are reaching this season.
Not even the woefully awful 2006 Raiders plummeted to the depths of despair like this rendition of the Silver & Black did last Sunday in Philadelphia. The 75 yards of total offense Las Vegas mustered was the fewest in a game since Week 11 of the 1955 season. For context, the 2006 team’s lowest offensive output was a 98-yard effort in a 20-13 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 8 (October 29). And the franchise’s all-time low point was a 58-yard output back on Oct. 22, 1961.
Layered in the cake of misery is the team performs worse and worse as the weeks go on as the opposition is out-scheming and out-playing Carroll’s Raiders. The lack of development from the roster is disconcerting, so much so, entrusting Carroll with the growth of what will likely be a Top 3 prospect in the 2026 NFL Draft is a terrifying thought.
There’s a myriad of things the Raiders need to fix this offseason — in all three phases of the game. Offense, defense, and special teams have each taken their respective turns providing lowlights in an abysmal season. While Carroll has the experience, knowledge, and winning pedigree, none of that carried over to his Raiders tenure. As a defensive-minded coach and staunch Cover 3 truther, the process of meshing Carroll’s core beliefs with defensive coordinator Patrick Graham hasn’t been fruitful.
Las Vegas’ defense was a respectable group against the run limiting or mitigating the damage, however, the last three weeks the dam broke. First came 192 rushing yards in Week 13 against the Los Angles Chargers, followed by 152 from the Denver Broncos, and 183 from the Eagles this past week. Including this egregious effort below:
Combine that with Carroll and Kelly not seeing eye-to-eye on the direction and execution on offense — which resulted in the firing — dysfunction just simply continues to be a Raider trait.
“Yeah, we need to show improvement. We need to get better,” Carroll said on what he hopes the Raiders accomplish in the final three games. “We need to move the football better and get in the red zone and get some points on the frickin’ board, man. We got to score, and then when we get our chances, we got to back it up with what we’re doing on the other side. And so, we just need to feel like we’re improving, and this game was so slanted in their direction, that it just didn’t feel like that at all.”
And for that to change, the Raiders must embrace a reset and start anew this offseason — yet again.
It’s a maneuver that won’t be holistically popular. The mocker of the Silver & Black will arrive swiftly and the bite sharp as it’s venomous. But Las Vegas cannot stay the current course. And an amicable separation between Carroll and the Raiders is a must-do.
Perhaps that arrives with a simple mandate: Carroll, we’ll consider your continued tenure but you must clean house in your coaching staff and begin anew.
Considering that two of Carroll’s children are on staff — Brennan and Nate — that may be the catalyst to a departure as the elder Carroll is prideful as is caring and putting his kiddos through that kind of humiliation may just be too much to bear. After all, the Raiders offensive line and run game is much maligned and the ineffectiveness and ineptitude is clear as day. And it’s Brennan that’s the offensive line boss and run game coordinator. While Kelly and McMahon were waxed for incompetence, Brennan remains despite the clear and present lack of success.
If Pete hasn’t dismissed Brennan yet, it’s difficult to see him do at season’s end.
It’s human nature to yearn for reconciliation, catharsis if you will. But that process of releasing, and providing relief from, a strong or repressed emotion means purging Carroll and his coaching staff.
If you don’t feel this way, that’s fine.
Let’s see how Carroll’s Raiders do against the Houston Texans’ No. 1-ranked defense this coming Sunday. You’ll likely get more mounting evidence that a Raiders reset is not only apt, it’s required.
