Pete Carroll wants Chargers job over Jim Harbaugh, according to PFT

Does the former Seahawks head coach want to beat Jim Harbaugh one more time? 1/23/2024 Seaside Joe 1788

On Monday, I heard ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio hint on his show that there was a “mystery candidate” pushing for the L.A. Chargers job that he didn’t want to reveal because it was only rumor, but apparently less than 24 hours later is enough time for Florio to comfortably start spreading rumors anyway: Mike Florio tweeted on Tuesday that Pete Carroll wants to be the next Chargers head coach, within hours of a report by Mike Garafolo that L.A. is in “striking distance” with Jim Harbaugh.

How does it impact the Seahawks if Pete Carroll takes a head coaching job this year?

Well, Pete Carroll accepted a role in Seattle’s front office, so obviously going to the Chargers would put a serious dent in that plan.

Of course, I don’t think anybody really cares at this point if Carroll is working with the Seahawks in some capacity or not. I mean, if he was here, more power to him, but if he leaves to join another team to do what he loves to do, the most power to him. That’s a good reason to leave, as if being fired wasn’t enough already.

Why Chargers?

I thought it was really weird that Carroll made it clear at his final press conference that he wanted to continue coaching but that he would be staying with the Seahawks. I mean, eight teams fired the head coach, including Seattle, and Carroll would be an upgrade for several teams that were eliminated in the playoffs.

I’m NOT saying that I’m encouraging this to happen, but wouldn’t the Eagles be better off? Wouldn’t the Bucs be better off?

Those are some obvious upgrade situations to me, but then other teams would have to at least think about it, including the Bills, Dolphins, Cowboys, and non-playoff teams like the Saints, Bears, Giants.

Pete Carroll going to the Bears? Defensive coach, defensive football team, number one overall pick who plays at USC headed to Chicago?

I’m stunned that I’m the first one to put this together. Why isn’t Pete in these conversations?!

When I ranked the seven openings (Patriots had already promoted Jerod Mayo and since then the Raiders hired Antonio Pierce, the Titans hired Brian Callahan) I had the Chargers at #2, between the Falcons and Seahawks. Since Carroll wasn’t going to get the job in Seattle, that only left two potential upgrades: The Falcons and Chargers.

Teams that should have been competing for a Super Bowl in 2023 that fell well short of expectations.

(The QB situation in Atlanta proved to be the Falcons downfall, so they didn’t really have much of a chance but in the NFC you never know.)

We can’t say that the Falcons were scared off by Pete’s age because they’re reportedly the only team going after Bill Belichick, but maybe Pete is afraid that the next QB going to Atlanta will be Russell Wilson? It’s much easier to figure out when the team you’re going to already has Justin Herbert and despite being in the same division as Patrick Mahomes and Sean Payton, it seems like the Chargers have the best trump card of all the teams without a head coach:

You don’t need to find a QB if you come here.

That’s great news for someone like Pete Carroll because I can GUARANTEE you that he wasn’t going to go looking for a QB if you didn’t have one already.

Do I believe Mike Florio?

ProFootballTalk’s Florio is for all intents and purposes an attention-starved rumor monger who can’t take his next breath until he is finished connecting dots between two unrelated situations that might—if he’s very lucky—end up tied together maybe 4% of the time.

That being said there are two sides of PFT: The side that reports news, which is probably 80% of the content. And the side that spreads rumors or Florio saying sentences that begin with, “What if?”

“What if, now here me out, what if the Seahawks sell the team TO Jim Harbaugh? He’s got all that money from Michigan, he could take it and buy a stake in…” (Blah blah blah.)

I mean, he basically just did it this morning:

Nobody is trading Jalen Hurts.

Florio’s suggestion of a mystery coach in the Chargers mix followed up by a tweet confirming that he’s talking about Pete Carroll feels like a combination of both: He probably HAS heard from someone(s) that Carroll’s expressed an interest in the job (we already know from Pete himself that he wants to coach) and he also feels like he’s going to spread this rumor now because he’s afraid that the news hammer is about to drop on Harbaugh signing with the Chargers.

I don’t expect Pete Carroll to get the job, nobody does including Florio, but maybe there’s some scenario in which Harbaugh doesn’t go to L.A. and the Chargers next option or two become unavailable (if Mike Vrabel signed with the Seahawks, that could even open a door for Carroll) and then the franchise is saying “Hey we have a 2-3 year window we want to attack right now.”

Will Pete Carroll be with the Seahawks this year?

If there’s any truth to the rumor that Pete is interested in outside opportunities already, I wouldn’t be surprised if Pete isn’t with the Seahawks for much longer. It’s not that Seattle would take offense to Pete trying to get a job with another team—that’s what people do when you fire them—but maybe it’s not the best competitive advantage to have someone here who didn’t want to leave and is now trying to make a different franchise better than yours.

It’s always been strange that Pete even has a role with the team ever since it was announced.

I hope it works out for him. But I mostly hope whatever happens works out for the Seahawks.