Pete Carroll was fired by the Raiders on Monday, and it was a decision by the organization that didn’t come as a surprise to many.
Carroll led the Raiders to the worst record in the NFL (tied) in 2025 and made a number of questionable coaching decisions in his 11 months with the team.
One of Carroll’s most criticized moves was the decision to hire his son as the offensive line coach, especially after it became clear the Raiders had probably the worst offensive line in the league.
Carroll fired his special teams coach and offensive coordinator during the season, but offensive line coach Brennan Carroll managed to hang around for the entire season.
Former Raider great Lincoln Kennedy talked about Carroll’s decision to hire and not fire his son at the mid-point of the season.
“He’s the coach’s son. I mean, look, I’m not one who wants to mix business with family. Okay. Trust me… I don’t do that. But at the same point, at this position, something’s got to happen,” Kennedy said on the Locked on Raiders Squad Show podcast in November.
“I’m not that fire guy. I’ve never been that… because, look, I don’t want to get into coaching because I don’t want to live with my bags packed, but also because of reasons like this. The fact that the players are out there not doing well, sometimes they’re in the wrong position. That does have something to do with coaching. At the same point, it also has to do with execution.”
Not long after it was announced that Carroll was fired, The Athletic’s Ted Nguyen said the decision to hire Carroll’s son was one of the 74-year-old head coaches biggest mistakes in Las Vegas.
Nguyen added that the younger Carroll was not known to be a “detail-oriented guy” during his tenure with the team, which would make sense considering the offensive line wasn’t a detail oriented offensive line at many points in the season.
There will be more details to come on Carroll’s time with the Raiders, but the team’s record and play on the field said enough about what was going on behind the scenes in Las Vegas this year.
By all accounts, the players seemed to like Carroll, but for a variety of reasons the fit wasn’t good.
In some ways the organization failed Carroll, but the season went sideways in too many ways for the Raiders to roll the dice on Carroll for a second season – especially considering the roster is headed for an unprecedented overhaul in the offseason.
The good news is the Raiders “earned” the first overall pick in the 2026 draft thanks the efforts of everyone involved and that could prove valuable going forward.
“In the whole scheme of things, if we’re being straight up honest, it’s the best thing that could have happened to this organization. Finishing getting a top two pick and getting a quarterback,” Vinny Bonsignore said last week on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“Geno Smith has been a class act to us. And I know I’ve had plenty of conversations. I’ve got no problems with Geno Smith. I know that he didn’t deliver and that’s going to be on his resume and it’s created a lot of discord with the fans. I get it, he gets it, it’s the way life works. But he wasn’t the answer, the long-term answer,” Bonsignore continued.
“Nobody on this roster is the long-term answer at quarterback. The Raiders need a quarterback. We’ve been saying that for years. They’ve been on the outside looking in, in the draft, they’ve won meaningless games down the stretch in previous seasons that knocked them out of contention for one of the top quarterbacks in the draft. In the whole scheme of things, as painful as this season has been, and it’s probably going to cost people jobs, it’s literally the best thing that could have happened. Only because of now, you’re in position [to draft a quarterback] … and I think that’s going to be a game changer for this franchise.”
x: @raidersbeat
Most of the Time it Takes just as much Effort to be the Absolute Worst as it does to be the Best… with that in Mind the Raider Nation can Proudly Chant Loud and Proud….
We’re #`1 We’re #1 We’re #1 First Time in 43 Years!!! Congrats to Coach Biden… I mean Carroll for the Final Push to get us there. Thank Goodness NO Re-PETE!!!
Go to sleep Philly fool. It’s past your bedtime.
Now all they have to avoid is the Jamarcus repeat. No telling what Brady decides to do with the top pick. That’s why I thought it was imperative for Mark to get REAL team president to oversee this critical draft instead of leaving it in the hands of an inexperienced person, Brady.
Geno, class act?
Flipping off the fans and whining worse than Carrt did is more classless.
This nepotism factor is a sad side of coaching. It’s probably the biggest reason Pete wanted the job, just to give his boys a leg up. I doubt it was disclosed in his interview that his son would be coaching the offensive line. At least he didn’t paralyze a child like Andy Reid’s son did. All the more reason to hire a young hungry coach making his own path.
Remember, maybe nobody carried more water for the Carrolls than Hondo Carpenter. All year long he cited mysterious forces in the building he refused to reveal for…. unknown reasons. But he said he would explain it if the season ended and Carroll got fired. Odds he actually names any names or reports anything solid?
Shocker. Anybody could see that the O-line was out there having no clue what they were doing when it came to picking up the games the D-line played and picking up the blitzes. To me that’s a straight reflection of the coaching they got. Parham has regressed greatly from a couple years ago. The stupid stuff going on with JPJ and keeping the rookies on the bench. And Hondo, LOL, in one of his videos saying this guy was a good O-line coach because he saw some drills he liked that he did. Since when do “drills” make someone a good coach?? LOL Hondo needs to go cover another team or just retire.