The Seattle Seahawks moved on from the best coach in their history. Ultimately, the quality that resulted in all those victories led to his dismissal.
Pete Carroll is unequivocally the greatest head coach in the history of the Seattle Seahawks. He leads the franchise by comfortable margin of 51 wins. His winning percentage of .606 is the only one above .571 (and that was Mike McCormack over the course of just seven games). And of course, he’s the only coach to lead the Hawks to a Super Bowl win. So spare me from the “you just hate Pete” commentary.
In fact, I was in the “give him another year” camp a lot longer than many 12s. Am I thrilled that the Seahawks have a new head coach? Yes, I’m ecstatic, in fact. The team, especially the defense, looks like the Hawks did at their best. You know, under Pete Carroll. I believe the reason I stayed in his camp so long was the same quality that led to his dismissal.
The Seahawks had to ignore their loyalty to Pete Carroll because he couldn’t ignore his own
Pete Carroll was loyal to a fault. I mean that literally, as it was eventually his loyalty that cost him his position as the head coach of the Seahawks. When Carroll came to Seattle to rescue the franchise – and after 4-12 and 5-11 seasons, they needed it – he brought along Jeremy Bates. Bates had been Carroll’s quarterbacks coach the previous year at USC. He only lasted one year in Seattle, but he would be the only coordinator to have such a short tenure with the organization.
Carroll inherited defensive coordinator Gus Bradley from Jim Mora’s staff, and clearly liked what he saw. Bradley coached the Hawks’ defense for three more seasons and only left to take the head coaching job for the Jaguars.
That’s a pattern we saw again, 12s. Dan Quinn had coached Seattle’s defensive line under Bradley and Carroll in 2009 and 2010, then left to helm the Florida Gators defense for the next two years. When Bradley left, Carroll brought Quinn back as the Seahawks’ new DC. Two seasons later, Quinn left to take the Falcons head coaching job. I happen to think Quinn has always been overrated.
Now this is where we start running into trouble. In 2011, Carroll replaced Jeremy Bates with Darrell Bevell. The former Vikings OC – Bevell, that is – coached the Hawks offense for seven seasons. His offense reached its pinnacle in 2015 when it ranked fourth in both points and yards. A decline over the next two seasons forced Carroll’s hand. Carroll could have made the change after the offense dropped from 4th to 18th, but he gave Bevell another season to prove that he’d already delivered his best.
After Bevell was fired, the Hawks brought in Brian Schottenheimer. Schotty got three seasons in Seattle and never had the Hawks ranked lower than ninth in points before he was shown the door. In hindsight, maybe we shouldn’t have been screaming for his head. But it sure was maddening to see the Seahawks play such predictable ball in the playoffs.
In 2021, Shane Waldron took over the offense. We saw that yes, Russ could cook for a little while, but eventually, that dish fell flat. Waldron got what seemed to be the standard three years as well before virtually the entire staff was replaced.
The most egregious example of misguided loyalty, by far, is the case of the Seahawks’ former defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr. Yes, we’re back on the defensive side of the ball, but let’s talk about the man who replaced Dan Quinn first.
Kris Richard had been with Pete Carroll forever. He was a graduate assistant at USC for two years under Carroll; apparently, they were a package deal, because he joined his head coach in Seattle in 2010 as an assistant defensive backs coach. He became the main man for DBs in 2011, establishing his credentials as the coach of the LOB. When Quinn moved on, Richard moved up. But as we’ve seen in too many cases, the unit deteriorated, and Richard was dismissed after three seasons.
And now we’re back to Mr. Norton. Ken Norton got four years to prove that he was not in any manner a competent NFL defensive coordinator. The Seahawks dropped from 11th in yards allowed the previous season to 16th in 2018 in Norton’s first season. After that, their highest rank was 22nd. For a more detailed look at Norton’s mediocrity, look no further. Well actually, yeah, you have to look further when you click the link. But you know what I mean.
Norton was terrible, but since he’d been Carroll’s linebackers coach at USC for six years, Pete trusted him. Just like Bates and Richard, Norton made the move to Seattle along with Carroll. He gets credit for coaching the linebackers for five years at the peak of the Seahawks defensive prowess. But seriously, you or I could say we coached Bobby Wagner and K.J. Wright, and they’d have been phenomenal anyway.
After Norton was finally let go, Clint Hurtt stepped in for two seasons. Two quite woeful seasons at that. As with so many of the Hawks coordinators, he too was an internal promotion. Hurtt was Seattle’s defensive line coach (and assistant head coach) for five seasons before getting his shot to end his boss’s career in Seattle. That’s basically what they all did. Okay, Pete Carroll did it to himself, but you get the picture.
Now I know some of you 12s are thinking, or possibly screaming, “Pete wasn’t too loyal to his players though, was he? What about Bobby and Earl and Sherm?” Well, what about them? All of those players, and many more, got new contracts after their rookie deals expired. It was only when their deals got to be so expensive that it would throw the entire team’s finances out of balance that Pete Carroll – along with John Schneider – made the tough decision to let them walk. There’s no salary cap for coaches, so their hand is never forced.
As for that loyalty to his guys, just imagine if when Pete Carroll finally cut the cord on Ken Norton Jr., he had looked around the league a little bit, instead of staying with the guys he knew. He might have spotted a hot young talent who had just run one of college football’s best defense and had seven years of pro experience as well. That’s right, 12s, the Ravens hired Mike Macdonald as their defensive coordinator the same year the Seahawks moved Hurtt up to the position. Imagine how different things might be in Seattle today.
