The Seattle Seahawks were supposed to be the NFL’s newest dynasty not too long ago. They had one of the leagues best young, mobile quarterbacks who could throw a pass as good as anyone on the run. Their running back was literally unstoppable at times. And the defense was just flat out scary. Those days weren’t too long ago, but it feels like they were.
Why did it all come crumbling down? Why did the Seahawks never return to that Super Bowl success since their short window of greatness? I don’t have the answer for that, but I suspect I know the answer and I’m sure that many would agree. It’s not because the players got sick of each other, no. It’s because nobody seems too fond of Seahawks head coach, Pete Carroll.
Now, this isn’t a new theory. Many have speculated this issue far before me, but the latest evidence just keeps on popping up. Pete Carroll has had his days, but it feels like at this point he has lost control. I’m not saying the Seahawks should fire him. But he should definitely re-evaluate the way he does things in order to keep the stars happy. It only makes sense, right?
Beastmode Wanted Out
Marshawn Lynch was quite unstoppable during his run in Seattle. To this day, we’ll never understand why the Seahawks didn’t give the ball to Lynch up the gut on the goaline during the Super Bowl, but we’ll save that for another day.
Speaking of that play, though, that’s where Lynch’s beef with Carroll seemed to really go public. And it’s not like Lynch particularly hates Carroll, but he definitely understands that they couldn’t, and wouldn’t see eye-to-eye as long as Lynch was in Seattle.
During an interview with Complex Sports back in July, Lynch had a sit down with former NBA player, Matt Barnes. He touched on the topic of Carroll and explained why, and how Carroll and himself would never entirely agree with the way they go about things. Here’s what Lynch had to say.
“Pete Carroll is a rah-rah guy, and I’m just somebody who’s like, ‘Tell me what I need to do, where I need to do it, how I need to handle it, and I’ma get that job done but don’t give me no extra bullshit.'”
“At the end of the day, because of how he was and I was, we probably didn’t see eye to eye, but at the end of the day, we had the same vision in mind, our goal was to get to the championship,” Lynch added. “We probably didn’t agree with each other’s ethics with how to get there, but we knew that they worked.”
Don’t Forget About Earl Thomas Already…
Earl Thomas was the final piece of the ‘Legion of Boom’ left in Seattle during 2018. Now, here’s a guy who literally couldn’t get out of Seattle if he tried (believe me, he tried). Thomas did everything to try and convince the Seahawks to just get rid of him. He even ran into the Dallas Cowboys locker room after a game urging them to trade for him.
Now, this doesn’t all fall on Pete Carroll as the front office are the ones who handle the contracts. But it was pretty clear that Thomas doesn’t think too highly of his coaches either when he’s throwing up the middle finger while being carted off with an injury.
Thomas still has yet to address his infamous situation, but nobody in Seattle seems to really care that much about it at the moment. At this point, everybody recognizes that Thomas is as good as gone from the Seahawks organization, so nobody is stressing about it.
Richard Sherman Figured Out the Issue
Seeing Richard Sherman in another uniform other than the Seahawks is flat out weird. He was drafted to the Seahawks in 2011, and it seemed like he would finish his career there. Unfortunatley, Sherman saw Carroll losing control of the players that made their Super Bowl teams so special.
Sherman spoke with ESPN about the Seahawks not too long after he signed with the San Francisco 49ers back in March. Although Sherman kept it very classy, he also made it very clear that he believes that the Seahawks would be getting rid of Carroll sooner than later.
“At the end of the day it just seems like — I don’t know how to say it — they’ve kind of lost their way a little bit in terms of how they see players and how they evaluate players. It was kind of an odd situation because we’ve obviously had players injured multiple times, multiple years and this was the first time that anyone who has been injured of the core players has been cut.”
“I think at the end of the day it just became an issue of devaluing core players, players that are playing at a high level and really being curious about younger players and curious about the unknown,”
“If things don’t go as planned and they don’t get to the playoffs and they have a rough year, then I think that’ll weigh into his decision. The legacy begins to get tainted at that point.”
The Most Recent Comment By Michael Bennett
The Seahawks traded defensive end, Michael Bennett, to the Philadelphia Eagles during the offseason. There was no possible way that the Seahawks were heading into 2018 with Bennett on the roster. The situation had already gone sour well into the 2017 season, and it was only a matter of time until Bennett departed from the team.
Now, we should all be well-aware that Bennett is not a fan of Carroll, as he has stated before that he would read during meetings just to ignore Carroll’s message. But some recent comments, that he made about his current coach, Doug Pederson have made it clear that he didn’t exactly feel respected elsewhere. Basically, he meant in Seattle.
#Eagles DE Michael Bennett has strong feelings for Coach Doug Pederson: “You want to win for Doug because he respects you as a man and not a lot of coaches treat you like that in the NFL so you want the guy to keep his job and for him to do that, you have to win.”
— Rob Maaddi (@RobMaaddi) October 9, 2018
“Not a lot of coaches treat you like that in the NFL.” It’s obvious that Bennett isn’t too fond of his former head coach, and a lot of other former Seattle stars see it as well. At this point, you have to wonder if Carroll has a future with the Seahawks or not beyond his contract.
Carroll’s contract is up after 2019, and if these comments by former players are any indication of how things are going with the Seahawks, it might be best for the organization to just move on at that point. A re-build could help as they will bring in fresh new faces, but as young players are catching onto comments from former players, it’s probably not a good look.
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