Insiders Offer Latest Rumblings on Pete Carroll’s Future with Raiders

Pete Carroll could be coaching he final game with the Raiders on Sunday, and a couple of insiders shared the latest they are hearing on Carroll’s status this week.

“My sense is that a lot of people are watching Las Vegas for the potential that Pete Carroll is one-and-done with the Raiders,” ESPN’s Dan Graziano reported on Thursday. “This season has gone quite poorly, and they seem to be positioning themselves for the No. 1 draft pick, so the theory is they might want someone else around to develop that selection if it’s a quarterback.”

Earlier in the week, Sports Illustrated’s Hondo Carpenter said he thought Mark Davis would have to step in to save Carroll’s job if the 74-year-old head coach was going to be retained and added later in the week that he doesn’t think Davis will get in the way of Tom Brady and GM John Spytek firing Carroll.

“I thought Mark Davis was the only one that could save his job. I want to expand on that. I still believe that today…” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast.

“But I would tell you that I’m even more convinced now that Mark is not going to intervene,” Carpenter continued. “And again, I told you Monday is the first time I could see that… Regardless of whether you think it’s the right thing or the wrong thing, I think that there has been enough evidence produced where Pete trying to sell Mark Davis on what he can do. I think there is enough evidentiary evidence for the Pete Carroll critics who are part of the organization to say to Mark, yeah, but look at these decisions. Rightly or wrongly, I am now firmly rooted in, I do not believe Pete will be back.”

“I don’t think that Mark will step in. I said that on Monday. I alluded to that. Now I’m being even more direct. It would be a shock if Pete Carroll returns. And I would not be surprised if it’s done quickly.”

And speaking of Carroll being fired in a hurry, league insider Tony Pauline thinks it could happen soon after Sunday’s game.

“Three separate sources have told me that Carroll won’t survive this disastrous season and will be let go soon after the final game against the Chiefs,” Pauline reported on Monday. “These same sources tell me they expect Spytek to survive and remain general manager of the franchise.”

For what it’s worth, any talk of Spytek being fired at the end of the season was always more fiction than fact.

Spytek signed a five-year deal with the Raiders before the season and it’s no secret that he essentially answers to Brady on the team’s most important decisions. It would be unfair to point a finger at Spytek when he was essentially the middleman this season between the two power brokers in the organization – Carroll and Brady.

Brady is expected to make the decision on the Raiders’ next quarterback and if that’s the way it plays out, Spytek can wash his hands of yet another major decision by the organization.

Pauline reported this week that Spytek didn’t make the call to hire Carroll and said Carroll was the loudest voice in the building in favor of drafting Ashton Jeanty. It sounds like Spytek may have wanted to build the trenches rather than use a first-round pick on a running back, but Pauline didn’t specifically name Spytek with that assertion, saying “many in and around the organization” wanted to draft a lineman.

Carroll was asked this week if he would like to be a part of the Raiders’ upcoming rebuild and he was clear that he would like to be back next year.

Carroll also acknowledged that working with Spytek (and presumably Brady) has come with it’s challenges.

“I’ll probably talk more about it when we’re done, but right from the start, it was really clear the intent of how we wanted to do this and wanted to work together on everything, but there’s things that we hadn’t had a chance to come together on, so we had to work our way through stuff,” Carroll said of working with Spytek.

“We’re way better now than we were at the start. I want to make sure that I can complement all that John brings, and I need him to do the same for me. And so, that’s a work in progress, and it’s relationships. You got to work hard at it, and I love the guy. I think he’s bright as hell, he’s principled, he’s strong, he’s got integrity, he’s got character. I mean, he’s got all of the right stuff to be a fantastic general manager in this league.”

x: @raidersbeat