The Las Vegas Raiders own claim to one of the most famous stanzas in NFL Films history — “the Autumn Wind is a pirate, blustering in from sea, with a rollicking song he sweeps along, swaggering boisterously” — owing in large part to the incredible history of the franchise in NFL annals. But it’s been a hot minute since that pirate growled as he stormed the country; the only thing weather beaten are the faces of Raiders fans who have suffered through decades of ineptitude.
Pete Carroll, one of just three coaches to win titles at both the college and NFL level, is going to be the next coach in Las Vegas, and is the perfect man to restore this franchise to something resembling serious.
The Raiders won three Super Bowls between 1976 and 1983 and the franchise became legendary in the process. Al Davis was a ruthless owner and GM who once sued the league and also separately attempted to sue another coach midseason for libel. John Madden launched a Hall of Fame career with a bruising roster, winning a Super Bowl and was followed by Tom Flores, who won another pair of titles.
Art Shell kept the Raiders relevant during his impressive first run with the team (let’s not discuss the second one, a single-season disaster) and Jon Gruden had this team on the precipice of a title before Davis traded him to Tampa Bay, only to have Gruden’s Bucs take out Bill Callahan’s Raiders in the Super Bowl the very next year.
Since then, things have been completely off the rails. From 2003 through last season, the Raiders have had a total of two winning seasons and, including interims, an absurd 13 different head coaches.
Callahan lasted just one more year before being replaced by Norv Turner, who lasted just two years before being fired by Davis. He was replaced by Shell for a single season, who then gave way to a year and change of Lane Kiffin, which led to one of the greatest coach firing press conferences of all time:
The Kiffin era also featured the drafting of JaMarcus Russell, who you can easily argue is the biggest draft bust in NFL history. Tom Cable hung out for a few years after Kiffin, not doing much, and was replaced by offensive coordinator Hue Jackson. Jackson is best known for going 0-16 with the Browns, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that Davis died midseason while Jackson was coaching, so Jackson ostensibly assumed the role of owner and GM, trading future first- and second-round pick for retired quarterback Carson Palmer, only to miss the playoffs anyway.
Jackson gave way to Dennis Allen, who only lasted two years before he was replaced by Jack Del Rio. JDR actually won 12 games for the Raiders in a fluke-filled season and was replaced by Al’s son and current owner Mark Davis when Mark was given a chance to bring in Gruden from the broadcasting booth for a second run with the Raiders. Things were looking kind of better under Gruden — outside of all the disastrous draft picks! — before he was forced to leave the team amid an email scandal unearthed midseason.
Rich Bisaccia took over for Gruden and as interim led the Raiders to the playoffs! Naturally, the team let him go and replaced him with Josh McDaniels prior to the 2022 season. McDaniels was a trainwreck in the AFC West for the second time and let go, replaced by Antonio Pierce as the interim. Pierce WAS retained … only to be fired midway after this season.
Not every first-round draft pick was Jam-Jam level bad over this stretch, but the last 20+ years include: Russell, Robert Gallery, Darrius Heyward-Bey, Rolando McClain, D.J. Hayden, Karl Joseph, Gareon Conley, Clelin Farrell, Jonathan Abram, Henry Ruggs, Alex Leatherwood and Tyree Wilson. There are some hits but some of them were traded too soon — Khalil Mack, Amari Cooper — or were running backs — Darren McFadden, Josh Jacobs — taken too early.
So, yeah, like I said. A hot mess.
Enter Pete Carroll. Rip on his age and his devotion to running the football and playing defense all you want, but Carroll is a guy who wins football games. His steadfast belief in the COMPETE mantra is perfect for the Raiders where they are right now, drifting on the wind in the desert with no real hope for the future.
Whoever took this job was walking into a divisional buzzsaw, with Andy Reid, Sean Payton and Jim Harbaugh manning the other three franchises in the AFC West. Good freaking luck finding someone with the chops to match up with those guys. Carroll fits the bill in that regard.
He’s being paired with John Spytek (assuming nothing weird happens with the Jaguars who just signed Liam Cohen) and that makes the exact amount of sense as it did when he was paired with John Schneider in Seattle. The Buccaneers have been a haven for mid- and late-round steals lately and the Seattle near-dynasty under Carroll was built by finding guys in the later rounds who could help fill out the roster.
Carroll and the Seahawks also famously unearthed Russell Wilson in the third round of the 2012 NFL Draft, scooping him up and letting him, ahem, ~compete~ with newly signed Matt Flynn for the starting quarterback job despite Flynn getting an (at the time) extremely robust free agent contract. Russ won the job and played so well in his first season he probably could have been OROY, were it not for the presence of Robert Griffin III in Washington.
The former Seahawks coach has won like that a lot. Whether it was with Tavaris Jackson, an aging Matt Hasselbeck, Russ or Geno Smith, Carroll found ways to win with less than the ideal situation at quarterback.
Defensively, the Raiders should improve immediately. Carroll knows how to find guys who fit what he does on defense in the later rounds, which, along with some savvy free agency signings like Michael Bennett and Cliff Avril, is how the Legion of Boom was born.
Somewhat ironically, we might not even be here if it weren’t for Raiders minority owner Tom Brady, who stunned Seattle in Super Bowl XLIX, one of the craziest games ever, and helping to squash out a budding defensive dynasty. That Brady is reviving Carroll’s career as a coach in Vegas is just a wild plot twist.
I don’t think that Carroll is going to put the Raiders in the Super Bowl in Year 1 or anything, by the way. This is an uphill battle with a big old mustachioed stone named Andy sitting in the path and a warlock named Patrick Mahomes looming on top of him.
But the Raiders as a franchise have been broken for nearly two decades. Vegas needs a serious, culture-building football coach to come in and put in place things that can help turn the tide and get the Autumn wind floating through the NFL in a relevant fashion once again.
Carroll feels like that guy. And, at the very least, we’ll end up with a more fun version of this Raiders team, maybe we’ll get to relive “What’s your deal?” for what amounts to a third time and get some glorious shots of a silver-and-black clad Carroll smacking on 14 pieces of gum as he enthusiastically stomps the sidelines, hoping to bring the Raiders back to relevance.
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Author: Will Brinson
January 24, 2025 | 1:26 pm
