Pete Carroll’s first NFL coaching job was with the Bills back in 1984. Then-coach Kay Stephenson was impressed with his work as defensive coordinator at Pacific, Carroll’s alma mater, and hired him to coach the defensive backs.
A year later, he joined Bud Grant with the Vikings, where he stayed five seasons until the Jets named him defensive coordinator, a position from which he ascended to head coach … for one season.
In 1994, New York went 6-10 and Carroll found himself unemployed.
After a stint as San Francisco’s defensive coordinator, he was hired to coach the Patriots. In his three years Carroll took New England to the playoffs twice and won a post-season game. But when his ’99 team went 8-8, he was fired again and replaced by some guy named Bill Belichick.
We know his pedigree. Since 2001, he’s won a dozen AFC East titles and made it to six Super Bowls, winning four of them. But it’s also the same Bill Belichick who went 37-45 in five seasons with Cleveland before being axed.
It took him awhile to find his niche … ditto Carroll.
After the Pats, he went on to coach USC for nine seasons, winning a national championship but leaving to take a job with the Seahawks just as the NCAA was beginning an investigation of the Trojans related to perks for star running back Reggie Bush.
Carroll claimed he knew nothing of the improprieties and was coaching in Seattle when the NCAA made USC bowl ineligible for two seasons, took away 30 scholarships and vacated 14 wins over two season including its BCS Championship victory.
However, Carroll emerged unscathed with the Seahawks, though he endured a pair of 7-9 seasons to start — Belichick went 5-11 his first campaign with the Pats — before he found his footing.
The past four years Seattle has gone 46-18, 53-21 if you count playoffs, and owns one Super Bowl title and would have two Lombardi Trophies but for an horrendous late-game play-call as the Seahawks seemed set to score the winning touchdown.
This season, Carroll’s team, is 4-2-1 and atop the NFC West heading into tonight’s game against Buffalo at CenturyLink Field.
And during a conference call with the Bills media late last week, he talked about his NFL career.
When reminded of Buffalo’s 16 years-and-counting playoff drought, he recalled his own struggles with the Jets and Patriots.
“I was involved in that type of situation,” Carroll said with a chuckle, “it just didn’t last very long (before being fired).”
But with general manager John Schneider and Carroll, also vice president of football operations, teamed up, Seattle has become one of the NFL’s elite franchises.
What’s the key to not having the slippage endured by some teams after a streak of success?
“Competing day in and day out,” Carroll said. “John Schneider does the exact same thing keeping guys on our roster to keep (it) deep and competitive.
“You get too caught up in what you’ve accomplished and you can get dragged down. Before you know it, you’re not performing like you’re capable of. We’re driven to try to figure out that kind of cycle that (some teams) fall into. I know it (happens) and we’re trying not to be that. We’re on the other end of the spectrum if we can do it.”
And one way the Seahawks have done it is with a preponderance of young players (only seven of 53 Seahawks have reached their 30th birthday), most of them undrafted free agents.
“You look back over the last five years and we’ve had the most undrafted players on our roster, year-in and year-out,” Carroll said of NFL teams.”That’s just the way we do it. Last year we had 26 undrafted guys, this year 24. We’ve built our football team around our core guys we drew to the program five, six years ago and we’ve kept those guys here because we believe in playing young players. We did the exact same thing in college.
He continued, “John Schneider was in favor of that thought coming in here and I had done that at SC and believed in it. It’s not a big deal for us. By the time we get to the mid-point of the season, our young guys play like veterans. We’ve been a pretty good finishing team over the years and I think there’s something to (playing young guys).”
So why have the Seahawks been successful getting skilled players after a draft that lasts only seven rounds?
“Remember there used to be like 15 rounds (actually 17) in the old days (ending in 1977) and you just kept drafting,” Carroll said. “Now it’s no different … they’re out there and you just keep digging in and clawing and scratching. Part of it is our commitment and understanding that we’re gonna play young players and knowing that there are a lot of those guys out there that don’t make it into those seven rounds.
“We just keep on going and John has done a phenomenal job of approaching it in that manner. We feel like we’re making good choices well after the seventh round.”
And the Seahawks’ success shows it.
(Chuck Pollock, the Times Herald sports editor, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
