A lot of people turned their noses up at the idea of the Chicago Bears interviewing for Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll. Most of that comes from the fact he is 73 years old. Coaches that age almost never find peak success in the NFL or any professional sport. This doesn’t feel like the right move if the Bears are gunning for championships. Then again, this organization’s track record in recent years doesn’t give them the credibility to just turn away somebody with such glittering accomplishments on his resume. So they wisely chose to speak with him.
That interview was completed on Thursday, the fourth in a series the Bears have set up over the next several days. SM received details of how it went down from sources. Carroll reportedly came across “really well.” He made a positive impression and seemed to have a detailed, well-thought-out plan for what he would do. There was also an important wrinkle involved. Carroll had ideas for a possible succession plan for the eventual point he would retire permanently. One possibility involves luring a top assistant from another team with the title of Assistant Head Coach, putting them in line to inherit the job.
Pete Carroll is operating with clear urgency.
He knows this might be his last chance to land an NFL job before it’s too late. Draft insider Charlie Campbell revealed a few days ago that Carroll wants the Bears job “badly.” It isn’t hard to see why. They have a young quarterback who exhibits similar traits to Russell Wilson, who became a star under the coach in Seattle. There is also the strong defense they’ve built and quality weapons. Carroll isn’t dumb. Put a good staff in place and tweak a few weaker areas so this team could be ready to compete.
Pete Carroll appears to have taken his swing, and it was a good one. Whether it’s enough to sway the Bears remains to be seen. Initial belief around the league is they’d prefer somebody younger who can grow alongside Caleb Williams. That said, if the market turns against him with top options going elsewhere, Carroll would be a pretty solid consolation prize. It sounds like he has a vision for what this team would be. Even if they only get him for four or five years, it would finally make this franchise relevant.
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I’m good with it. In our situation we need a high level, proven coach not one with NO HC experience. It’s a lot more than X’s and O’s.
I would really prefer that the Bears take another swing at a proven head coach. They’ve only done it once with John Fox and that failed for many reasons including Pace drafting Trubisky behind his back. Carroll has a good resume both on the field and his ability to get along with many different types of player personalities. I don’t want to see them do the same thing that hasn’t worked for a decade. Change it up, step out of the “Bears are gonna Bears” bubble.
Get ready for Ben and Vrabel to go elsewhere. Raiders (Tom Brady) already showed how to go about business with a big sac. Warren has no sac. Oh, and BTW, Ben views Drake Maye as superior to CW. Vrabel and Ben will go to Pats/Raiders. So get ready to eat leftovers cuz Warren wouldn’t pull the plug on Poles. No top tier coach gonna want to work for that clown who doesn’t understand how to build a team beginning at the trenches. $100M in LBs? Cmon man.
I would think people around this site would be pretty excited about a guy like Pete Carroll, not just because of his coaching resume and well established ability to build and run an entire program, but because part of what made Seattle consistently good and sometimes great was they drafted very well pretty consistently. They did that by having a young (at the time) less experienced GM working hand in hand with Carroll on personnel decisions, so having Carroll working closely with Poles seems like it would make some of you happy. He also has hired playcalling coordinators on both… Read more »
Carroll is #3 on the list for me. He’s a very good coach and would put together a great culture. It’s just my opinion, but for me it’s.. 1) Ben 2) Vrabel 3) Carroll 4) Brady 5) Monken.