Will Seahawks fire Pete Carroll if they lose to Cardinals?
Could Seahawks trade Pete Carroll to Chargers? Is Jim Harbaugh an option? Are Seahawks the worst team in the NFC West? Seaside Joe 1765 has answers
The subject of the Seahawks firing Pete Carroll, him stepping away, or even potentially trading the Super Bowl-winning head coach has risen to the top of the agenda for fans after Sunday’s loss to the Steelers at Lumen Field. So instead of writing about the game or Seattle’s still achievable path to the playoffs against the Arizona Cardinals in Week 18, I’ll start the week by addressing the topic that seems to be atop everyone’s mind right now.
Will the Seahawks fire Carroll if they lose the finale, what could come next (Jim Harbaugh???), and does the possibility of a trade—just like the Saints getting a first round pick for Sean Payton a year ago—exist? Nobody outside of ownership knows the answers, but I will lay out my case based on the evidence. And there’s a lot of evidence to support the case that Carroll’s future is on the line this week.
Week 18 stakes are not just the playoffs
Nine games into the season, the Seahawks were five games better than the Cardinals: 6-3 to 1-8. But if Seattle loses the season finale in Glendale, Arizona next week, that gap will be closed to three games. That may give the appearance that the Seahawks are still better than the Cardinals, but is that an illusion? Because it will mean that Arizona finished the season 4-4 (all games started by Kyler Murray) and Seattle will have gone 2-6 in the final eight.
It implies that the Seahawks could be the FOURTH place team in the NFC West when Murray is healthy.
The first place team (the 49ers) are not likely to make any major changes in the offseason. The second place team (Rams) are not expected to slow down the momentum of having won six of their last seven. And if the Cardinals end the season on a win, as a .500 team when their franchise quarterback is healthy and outplaying Seattle for half of the year, they could choose to keep Murray and return in 2024 with two first round picks and a lot more money to spend in free agency than the other three teams in the division.
If the Seahawks return “the same” in 2024, are they doomed to finish in the basement of the NFC West?
There is always a chance that any of the other three teams could be worse next season if something happened to make them different…
But what the Seahawks have to be concerned about is whether or not they’ll be any better if the team remains the same.
Does that mean that if Seattle loses the season finale and gets eliminated from the playoffs having lost six of their last eight games that they should fire Pete Carroll?
Well, I’m not here to tell you ‘should’ or ‘would’…and I can barely speak on ‘could’ because the Seahawks are not a normal team in a usual predicament with a predictable owner. If the team was owned by Paul Allen and Carroll was more of a typical head coach instead of being someone who has run the ship for the past 14 years in all capacities, then under those circumstances perhaps it would be easier to say if he is on the hot seat.
But as far as I know, the Seahawks may have already told Pete Carroll—or Pete Carroll has told the Seahawks—that he isn’t going anywhere.
Calls to fire Pete Carroll, quelled for the past two weeks because of wins that are now deemed “meaningless”, are at a more intense pitch than they were at the tail end of the four-game losing streak. Not only are there more fans expressing displeasure with the team following Sunday’s loss to the Steelers (if head coaches had an approval rating like Presidents, Carroll’s could be at its lowest point since 2011), but the media hasn’t been this comfortable with criticizing the Seahawks in a long time.
Since we’ve once again seen the fickleness of the Internet play out amid Seattle’s up and down drama in almost an exact repeat of 2022 (Seahawks start 6-3, but finish needing a Week 18 win and a Packers loss to make the playoffs as a wild card team) then I might as well get ahead of it and…
Predict the reactions to a Seahawks win:
-If the Seahawks convincingly beat the Cardinals—a team that just went to Philadelphia and beat the Eagles by scoring twice as many points against them as Seattle just did—in Week 18, “fire Pete” talk may not disappear but it will go down significantly regardless of a playoff berth. How do I know? “What have you done for me lately?” is a top-3 guiding principle of fandom.
-If the Seahawks beat the Cardinals and the Bears beat the Packers, Carroll will get another playoff game to prove that he’s more right about the team than the skeptical public. He believes Seattle can win the Super Bowl. Almost nobody else does.
-If the Seahawks get into the playoffs AND win a playoff game, it will be impossible to find the same opinions on Pete Carroll that you’ll read this week. It doesn’t mean that the opinion is less valid—”If this convinces Seattle to run it back next season, that’s the worst thing that could happen”—it just means that change won’t be expected.
-And if the Seahawks shock the world and get to the NFC Championship game or beyond, Pete will have turned around the team much faster than anyone assumed possible when the franchise traded Russell Wilson to the Denver Broncos 18 months ago. (In fact, when the Seahawks traded Wilson to the Broncos, most who supported the move said that they would give Carroll and John Schneider a couple years of slack to develop the roster without judgment.)
What all of that means is that Seattle’s Week 18 hinge swings in favor of Pete Carroll IF the Seahawks beat the Arizona Cardinals.
However—and this is why it’s a “hinge” instead of a nail or a staple or something—that’s only if the Seahawks win. If Carroll wins the season finale, he has options. If Seattle makes the playoffs, he has at least one more week.
But IF THE SEAHAWKS LOSE TO THE CARDINALS and prove to be the WORST TEAM in the NFC West for the entire second half of the season (by a WIDE margin to San Francisco and L.A.; two games behind Arizona), Pete Carroll could be subject to being fired by parting ways with the franchise.
The problem with addressing Carroll’s job security is that other teams have a history with their ownership and/or other head coaches haven’t accomplished or are responsible for nearly as much as this guy.
However, if the Seahawks lose to the Cardinals, then under normal circumstances almost ANY head coach in the same situation would be subject to having conversations with ownership about his ability to help the franchise get to the Super Bowl.
From what I’m seeing in the last 24 hours, Seahawks fans want to address Pete Carroll’s job security. So that’s what I’m going to do in episode 1,765 of Seaside Joe.
Take everything you just read and times it by 12 because that’s what I’ll address for the rest of this article: Why I believe Pete Carroll could be coaching for his job in Week 18, the reasons the Seahawks have for not making a change regardless of the outcome, whether or not Seattle could trade Carroll to a team like the Chargers in the offseason, and how realistic is Jim Harbaugh as a possibility to replace him?
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