Why do some Seahawks fans hate Pete Carroll so much?
Seaside Joe 1327: Love and hate come from the same place
A lot of people assume that I probably hate, or at least dislike, Ben Baldwin. I don’t. I’ve known Ben since before he became “Ben Baldwin”, he wrote for me a few times at Field Gulls, and any time he joined me on the podcast he had a much different demeanor than the one he presents on Twitter. The offline Ben that I know, not that I know him well, is much different than the version that has gained a large following on social media.
But I also don’t dislike the probably-unconciously created character that Ben Baldwin is on Twitter.
A few years ago, a Chargers fan friend of mine started going on a rant to me about Ben, which I found surprising because these two people couldn’t come from more separate worlds in my universe and now they’ve converged because Ben has over 85,000 followers and people bring him up on podcasts, articles, and YouTube videos too. It’s not just that one Chargers fan either, I would say that most of the passionate football fans who I know in real life are at least aware of Ben Baldwin and I will hear his name offline at least a few times a year.
And they almost always fall into one of two categories: They either cite him because of some stat and they think that he’s great… or they say “F&#$ that guy.”
There’s practically no middle ground. I find myself in the middle ground—
I admire what some people like Ben are able to build, especially when it extends outside of social media and the internet. I knew Mina Kimes when she had under 1,000 followers. Obviously, Danny Kelly before he went to The Ringer. And there are people who I’ve met doing comedy in L.A. who have gone viral and made names for themselves as well. I’ve been able to witness many great accomplishments over the last 10 years and I’m happy for all of them, including Ben.
I don’t think that I hate anybody. Not because “hate” is too strong of a word. Hate has a valuable place in the world. It’s important to hate certain movie and TV and book characters, right? It’s important to hate certain qualities in ourselves that are downright destructive if not eradicated, I think. It’s also very important to hate beets and baby corn, the two least-edible foods in America.
I don’t hate people because I believe people have too many sides to their personalities to think that there’s not some good in there somewhere. As my brother Tony once told me, “There’s always something you can learn from anybody you meet.” Like or dislike, love or hate, there’s always going to be something you’re better at than me, something that you can teach me, qualities that I admire that I wish that I had. In anybody. If I start completely ignoring people because I dislike them, I’m only robbing myself of a potential opportunity to improve myself. Often what it is that we hate in another person could be something that we know we struggle with and wish we were better at. I’d rather learn from that person than continue to struggle.
Ben obviously has a lot of admirable qualities, otherwise there wouldn’t be a lot of respectable people who share his work and talk about him of high regard. Or a lot of people who get irritated by his every word on Twitter.
Love and hate come from the exact same place. Whether you love someone or hate someone, they got you. The fact that I’m even writing about Ben and have referenced him so many times at Seaside Joe, I have to give him credit and say that’s an admirable accomplishment. You don’t see Ben worrying about me, do you? I am able to lump all of analytics under “Ben Baldwin” because that Twitter account is something that so many football fans have come to know for that reason. It doesn’t mean that I will stop criticizing and critiquing NFL media members or Twitter or Ben—not even close to that.
But I would never throw out all of analytics just because of one irritating character on Twitter or some of the flawed narratives that are borne out of certain statistics or the fact that social media itself has driven many of those users past the brink of reasonable logic and common sense. I’d be robbing myself of some GOOD analytics!
I like some of what Ben tweets. Only a fool has a blanket beliefs about people and filters everything they hear about them through a layer of hate or love or some other emotion. The only side of that system who would suffer is the side that decides an entire resource is useless only because sometimes the resource is irritating.
For me, people are too nuanced to completely hate anyone. So why does it seem like there’s a contingent of Seahawks fans who absolutely loathe Pete Carroll? To the point that they seemingly turn everything about the Seahawks into something that symbolizes how much Pete Carroll is to blame for any failure… and merely a lucky witness to the successes?
Earlier this week I wrote “Did Seahawks trade disaster to the Broncos?” and a day later was able to reply to some comments. One of the comments was this by Luis Guilherme:
What pissed me off was calling Dissly — the guy who posted stellar receiving DVOA in his rookie season, shortened by an injury, and then came back in the following year and posted the second best receiving DVOA among tight ends, and this year tops all other tight ends in that metric — a "blocking tight end".
There is something like being a stat nerd that doesn't watch games. This is completely different — advanced stats favor Dissly a lot — this is just stubbornness and click-baiting.
The quote being referenced here is a tweet by Ben Baldwin criticizing Seattle’s offseason in a reply to somebody named “Trisha Falcons”… who I’ve never heard of before other than when that account decides to call me a bad word. Falcons actually retweeted something I wrote to criticize my take (which I have no problem with and encourage more people to do that same) and Ben took it a step further to essentially say that If Pete Carroll’s rebuild is “analytics-friendly” like Seaside Joe says, then why did Pete trade away a franchise QB, why did he let D.J. Reed go to the Jets, why did he draft Ken Walker, and why did he sign Will Dissly to a $24 million contract?
I will not get into answering those questions directly because that’s not the point I’m trying to make and we’ve covered this ground already. What Luis is getting at in his comment is, “Will Dissly is a perfectly good, balanced tight end who should be pretty well respected by analytics. So why even add that as criticism?”
Indeed, there are 16 tight ends making more annually than Dissly and he’s hardly cost prohibitive. Dissly ranks first in DVOA among all tight ends this season, fifth in DYAR, and even if Ben’s tweet is from May, Dissly has a consistent track record, having caught 83% of his targets since 2019.
There was only one answer that I could come up with that seemed to make the most sense because it’s also such a consistent theme of a certain subsect of Seahawks Twitter. In the last few days, I’ve gotten quite a few reactions to this comment, so I’ll repeat it here:
“When they filter everything through an "I hate that Pete Carroll runs this team" narrative, only bullshit comes out of the other side.”
It’s hard to not get the sense that some people feel they’ve crossed over a Pete Carroll hate threshold from whence they can’t escape.
A brief summary of Carroll’s Seattle coaching and executive history is that he took over the worst roster in the NFL in 2010, turned over almost every position in two years but was nearly in the NFC Championship game in 2012, won the Super Bowl in 2013, reached the Super Bowl again in 2014, and the Seahawks were probably the very first “analytics darling” by way of ranking first in DVOA in each season from 2012 to 2015.
I would be shocked if EPA saw it any differently and that’s both for offense and defense.
Even after Seattle’s best days were behind them, it seemed, the Seahawks won at least 10 games in 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2020, and Carroll’s only three losing records in 12 season were 7-9, 7-9, and 7-10. That’s his resume for a head coach, but as the last word in personnel decisions, Carroll also oversaw the drafting of Bobby Wagner, Russell Wilson, Earl Thomas, Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor, Tyler Lockett, DK Metcalf, (and more, I’m not “forgetting anyone” I just can’t list everyone) and there’s that inescapable feeling that 2022 could be the Seahawks’ magnum opus of draft classes.
This is not to say that Carroll is perfect! This is not even to say that Carroll is above the law or immune from the hot seat. I myself had to question if Pete was still the right person for the job after the Seahawks lost to the Washington Football Team in 2021 and dropped to 3-8 without a first round pick in the future (then).
The problem isn’t criticizing or doubting Pete Carroll. The problem isn’t that some people treat him like he’s untouchable or infallible.
The problem is not recognizing that there are many different takes and there doesn’t always have to be “a side that is right” and “a side that is wrong.” In most cases, nobody will be right and nobody will be wrong. That’s why sports are interesting and we watch them: Few things in life fully encapsulate “right” and “wrong” like “Winning” and “Losing.”
Those are final outcomes. But in the case of Pete Carroll or any head coach or GM, surely we can recognize that there will be good days and bad days. Positives and negatives. And right now it sure seems like Carroll’s positives are outweighing the negatives:
The Geno Smith endorsements were never taken as seriously as they should have been; I don’t see any apologies on Twitter for past comments on Carroll’s belief in Geno Smith as a sign that he’s too insane to be a coach anymore
The 2022 draft class is impeccable
The Seahawks have already won as many games (3) as I feared they might have won over the course of the whole season
The Seahawks are, ummm, ANALYTICAL DARLINGS! Hello!?! Seattle is fourth in offensive DVOA, third in passing DVOA, and Geno Smith is near the top of every list, whether it’s PFF or FootballOutsiders or Next Gen Stats
Seattle can now win all of their games and still be in line for a top pick thanks to the Russell Wilson trade, should the Broncos keep losing
DK Metcalf is a Seahawk for at least a few more years
Does anyone think Tariq Woolen isn’t being coached well enough?
It’s fine for anyone to say, “Well, what about the negatives? What about the defense? What about…” That’s fine! But don’t forget the positives and looking at the entire picture the next time you might scroll past a Twitter account that filters everything Seahawks-related through an “I hate Pete Carroll, better make this about my hate of Pete Carroll” belief system.
In my opinion, the best content will only be filtered through “What is true?”
Seaside Joe has a number of people who hate him, as you can start to sense with some of what I’ve already shared, I’m sure. That stuff would bother me in the past but now, I just don’t hate anybody, no matter how much they might hate me and wish me dead. I’m honestly grateful to have another interaction and to think about what Tony taught me about learning something from everyone you meet. And I understand that I’m not even talking to a person, I’m talking to a Twitter account.
Plus, I guarantee that some of the people who hate me have some reasonable points that I need to hear. Sometimes.
For over 10 years, I’ve regularly gotten emails from people who hate me. Direct messages. Tweets. And thousands upon thousands of comments. There are many people who see Seaside Joe as their version of “Ben Baldwin.”
I’m honored.
WOW! Yes, I want to shout that out. WOW! As soon as I was done reading I was in a hurry to find the like button. My brother's name was Tony, but that is the least of my reasons for feeling closer to you now than at any point up till now.
You masterfully developed your theme, and then hit us with an entire paragraph that explained that theme in clear, unambiguous terms. I quote it in it's entirety:
"In my opinion, the best content will only be filtered through “What is true?”"
What a revolutionary thought in these days.
I don't hate Ben Baldwin, I rarely even think about Ben Baldwin. I chose to comment about him because I was in one of those moods, the joke presented itself and I thought it was funny (although it probably wasn't). :-)
But I do luv me some Kenny. Your arguments are well thought out and crafted and that puts you miles ahead of the Baldwins and Barnwells of the world.