Pete Carroll is a legendary head coach, so his bizarre one season with the Las Vegas Raiders likely won’t be held against him too much. Since the news broke that he was let go, Carroll has stayed very quiet.
He didn’t even seem to make any public appearances during the Seattle Seahawks‘ recent Super Bowl run. Though he’s no longer with that franchise, he was instrumental in putting much of that roster together.
The only thing that got him to finally speak to the media was quarterback Geno Smith. The Raiders traded for him last offseason, as Carroll wanted to work with him again. The season didn’t go as planned. Smith led the NFL with 17 interceptions and only won two games as a starter.
This led to Carroll getting fired, and Smith was traded to the New York Jets. Despite the nightmare season, the coach still believes in Smith. He finally spoke to the media after the quarterback got traded to New York.
“I love talking about G,” Carroll told ESPN’s Rich Cimini. “I think I see him differently than a lot of people see him. I love him and appreciate him differently.”
Carroll Addresses What Went Wrong in 2025
Smith looked very good in his previous three seasons with the Seahawks before getting traded. His drop off in Las Vegas was very surprising. Carroll took some accountability for why things didn’t work out.
“He’s a phenomenal quarterback, he really is,” Carroll said. “He had a fantastic offseason and preseason with us, and he comes out in the first game, has a great first game. It was all fitting. It was exactly the right time for us. Then we just faltered and faltered. We didn’t do well enough, coaching.
“We should’ve had him better prepared for the things that happened, and that wouldn’t have happened,” he continued. “I take a lot of responsibility in that. We didn’t prepare him well enough in the offseason even though he looked great and we felt we had everything lined up. It was very, very disappointing for us both.”
Things got tough for Smith early on, and he was never able to bounce back.
“He got off to such a miserable start, and it wasn’t just him,” Carroll said. “It was the whole thing. We just didn’t function well early on, and he got behind the eight ball right from the beginning. Everybody wanted to blame him for it, and he took it and took it and took it, and then they captured him — an exchange or whatever. He just didn’t get to reap the benefits of our relationship.”
Carroll Seems to Place Some Blame on John Spytek
The Raiders’ offensive line was a main talking point much of the season. They led the NFL in sacks allowed.
Many wanted Carroll to hire the offensive line coach, who was his son, Brennan Carroll. Instead of acknowledging that he could’ve gone with a different coach in that spot, Carroll is suggesting that perhaps general manager John Spytek didn’t do enough to upgrade the offensive line in the offseason.
“We got killed, we got killed,” Carroll said. “Our offensive guys up front, from the last couple of years, we got murdered. We needed to upgrade that more than we did. It didn’t happen in the draft, and it didn’t happen in the offseason.
“We didn’t go for it in the offseason. We needed to buy a new line to give the guys a chance to at least be more competitive. The only reason you get sacked that much is because you try to throw it too much. The whole thing didn’t quite work out and what’s why you saw a change and all that.”
He doesn’t directly throw Spytek under the bus, but it does sound like he isn’t happy with the roster he was given. It’s worth noting that the Raiders did use two third-round picks on offensive linemen who Carroll refused to play until toward the end of the season.
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