Not Half Bad

Why do people call Pete Carroll an NFL failure?

Getty Images

This man is a "failure?"

Another USC football regular season comes to an end this Saturday, naturally accompanied by major coaching news regarding the program. It's the price of regular dominance. This time it's Steve Sarkisian heading to Seattle. It also means that Pete Carroll's last three O-Coordinators took on a top NFL coordinator position, an NFL head coaching gig, and a Pac 10 head coaching gig respectively. Amazing. (They also produce a good defense.) Naturally, we must proceed to the BCS season with rumors of where Pete Carroll might go if and when he pulls the plug on his term at USC and gets the NFL itch once more. (A DC cabinet position?) Even though it seems clear Carroll really just uses this as a bargaining chip for his USC deal in the manner any coach would, we also get the typical cries of "Why the NFL?" and "He has it so good at USC!" But there is always that other cry: "Carroll was a failure in the NFL!"

Really?

Google that word along with Carroll's name, and you get some 310,000 results. Most are just moronic throw-away comments built for message board fodder, but that's still a lot of F-word's being tossed at the man who took a shell of a former USC program and rebuilt Troy into what is the currently steadiest force in college football. But mostly, Carroll is worth noting here because his NFL career was actually pretty fascinating, and also not bad at all, actually.

In fact, if you call Carroll an NFL "failure", he's in fantastic company. More amazing: look at who preceded and followed him. It's wacky.

When he got his first head coaching gig, Carroll took over the New York Jets in 1994. Preceding him was, yes, Bruce Coslet, (in)famously of Bill Simmons' "Bruce Coslet Division", signifying the worst of the worst in the NFL power rankings. Carroll didn't do much, taking over Coslett's 8-8 Jets team, starting 6-6 before injuries piled up and the team dropped their final four games. So he has a rough first year and gets canned. Absurd. Well, none other than Rich Kotite takes over and promptly takes Carroll's team to a 3-13 record, followed by a 1-15 mark. Bottom line, Carroll was the unwitting crème in the middle of an Oreo from hell.

Jets Career:
Preceding Season under Bruce Coslet: 8-8
One Season under Carroll: 6-10
Following Season under Rich Kotite: 3-13

This is where it gets weird. After being sandwiched between that disaster (seriously, say the name "Rich Kotite" in a Jets bar and see if you don't get punched), Carroll follows none other than Bill Parcells into New England. And not only does he go 10-6, but he had a shot at taking the team back to the Super Bowl (Parcells had gone 11-5 the year before) until they became the unwitting victims of Kordell Stewart's 40-yard TD run in a 7-6 divisional playoff loss. The team went 9-7 the next year and 8-8 the year after. Carroll was let go. The guy who followed is none other than Bill Belichick. All he did was go 5-11. In the four years preceding Carroll, Parcells went 32-32. Carroll went 27-21. In the three years that followed Carroll, Belichick went 25-23. After that, Belichick went on to a fantastic run of dominance paralleled most closely on the college level by Carroll's own run.

Patriots Career:
Preceding Season under Bill Parcells: 11-5
Following Season under Carroll: 10-6
Last Season under Carroll: 8-8
Following Season under Bill Belichick: 5-11

The bottom line is this: Carroll as an NFL head coach was sandwiched between what are considered two of the worst coaches of all time, and also two of the best. In either case, given the team he coached, could you possibly say he was some kind of abject failure? Not really. In many ways, it's possible that his one season of coaching the Jets was similar to Belichick's first sojurn into coaching with the Browns, or even his first year with the Patriots. The mad genius was still learning his way and his errors weren't a disaster, comparatively. Carroll also showed that he may have even out-coached the man who followed him in each case. It's also notable that when he wasn't head-coaching, Carroll was considered an exceptional defensive mind. He oversees that side of the ball at USC, only recently hiring a defensive coordinator to exert more control. In that time, USC has been nothing less than dominant.

You could say that Carroll is a perfect college coach, but in terms of his time in the NFL, it's a farce to call him a failure.

If an NFL franchise wanted a true risk, they'd be better off calling on Nick Saban.

Print Article . Email Article. Subscribe to The Magazine