Pete Carroll isn’t holding back on how great he thinks the Raiders are going to be this fall.
The longtime coach is now leading the way in Las Vegas, and he’s extremely confident that he’ll turn the franchise around, and quickly.
“We gotta win a ton. We’ve gotta win a bunch of games … I’ve been winning 10 games a year for 20 years or something now,” Carroll said on Tuesday. “What are my expectations? We’re gonna win bunch, and I don’t care who hears that. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Now, it’s easy to want to ignore a coach speaking this way at the start of training camp. Honestly, it’d be way more surprising if a coach wasn’t exuding confidence at this point of the season.
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But Carroll is taking over a franchise that has been in, well, turmoil for years now. After 14 seasons and a Super Bowl win with the Seattle Seahawks, Carroll split with the franchise after the 2023 campaign. He was then hired to replace Antonio Pierce in Las Vegas in January, which makes him the team’s fifth head coach over the last five seasons. They also parted ways with general manager Tom Telesco after just one season.
The Raiders went just 4-13 last season and finished last in the AFC West. They’ve made the playoffs just once over the last eight years, and they haven’t won a postseason game since their run to the Super Bowl during the 2002 campaign.
So the Raiders opted to bring in Carroll to try and right the ship. Based on his track record — he had a stretch where the Seahawks won double-digit games eight times over nine seasons, and he missed the playoffs just four times in Seattle — it’s a decent strategy. Carroll brought in Chip Kelly to be his offensive coordinator too. The pair will start to build an offense around quarterback Geno Smith and rookie running back Ashton Jeanty, among others. The Raiders struck deals with veteran safety Jamal Adams and cornerback J.T. Woods on Tuesday afternoon, which should only bolster their defense.
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The Raiders have plenty of work to do to legitimately turn things around. But, at least at the start of camp, there’s reason to believe they are on the right path. And Carroll has no doubt that he’ll get his new group there.
“Expectations are really high. The standards need to be, so that expectations could be met,” Carroll said. “I wish I could guarantee it for you.”
