The Raiders are entering a new era under head coach Klint Kubiak, but we’re not too far removed from last year to look back at the shortcomings of the 2025 season, and where the former coaching staff came up short.
It’s no secret that Pete Carroll and GM John Spytek were not always in alignment a year ago, but according to flagship radio host ‘JT the Brick’, one of the on-field issues was that the former coaching staff didn’t do a good enough job of teaching and communicating with the players.
“We didn’t have proper teaching last year. The coaches were not instructed to teach last year. They were instructed to coach. They didn’t teach. They had too many young players who were not taught how to play football at the NFL level,” JT said on his Raider Nation Radio show on Wednesday.
“They didn’t get enough reps because they had this system of competing where a lot of them were not aware of where they stood in the depth chart of competition because the coaches didn’t communicate. The ones who were fired, and their subordinate coaches didn’t do enough time teaching. They did a lot of coaching and being very vague about what your role was going to be,” JT continued.
“The biggest turnaround this year in my opinion, this is just me, is that everybody is going to be on the same page with their role. You’re either starting or you’re not. We’re not playing head games with you that you might start if you prove to be better at times or do this.”
Pete Carroll wasn’t necessarily the problem
Carroll has taken a lot of criticism for the way the 2025 season played out, and rightfully so, but according to JT, some of the issues stemmed from the coaches around him.
“A lot of players walked around last year like, ‘Wait a second, I thought I had a good practice, but no one told me I had a good practice.’ Pete Carroll did. Pete Carroll was great at that. Pete Carroll sat down with me every week and… he went up and down the line… He went up and down the line and told everybody, good job, good job, man. Keep it going. Keep competing,” JT continued.
“Problem was other coaches didn’t do that. From Chip to Pete’s son, to a lot of other coaches who are gone because they didn’t teach properly and they didn’t let the players who deserve to have more practice and be taught, they didn’t give them the attention to detail that John Spytek now and Klint Kubiak are going to give. That’s what I know.”
JT mentioned Chip Kelly and Brennan Carroll, specifically, but it’s fair to say neither coach was put in an ideal position to succeed – whether that was Carroll’s fault or someone else’s is a debate for another day.
The California Post’s Vinny Bonsignore talked about the Raiders’ awkward coaching dynamic during the season and, as others have also indicated, Kelly was not Carroll’s pick to lead the offense a year ago.
“I’m going to go out on a limb… and say that when Pete Carroll was hired and they were interviewing him, I’m going to say that the last name that he ever brought up to be his offensive coordinator was Chip Kelly in that process,” Bonsignore said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate all the way back in November.
“If that is the case… I don’t think that was the plan… I don’t think that conversation ever happened from Pete Carroll’s perspective. And if that is the case, how big of a problem was it that maybe he was, that Chip Kelly was put on to Pete Carroll’s lap?”
Carroll hasn’t said a lot on record since being fired by the Raiders, but he did defend his son in an ESPN interview in March.
Carroll told ESPN’s Rich Cimini that the coaching staff, including himself, were to blame for Geno Smith’s failures in 2025, but the Carroll was clearly disappointed in the offensive line he was given last year.
“We got killed, we got killed,” Carroll said of the Raiders offensive line in 2025. “Our offensive guys up front, from the last couple of years, we got murdered. We needed to upgrade that more than we did. It didn’t happen in the draft, and it didn’t happen in the offseason.”
“We didn’t go for it in the offseason,” Carroll continued. “We needed to buy a new line to give the guys a chance to at least be more competitive. The only reason you get sacked that much is because you try to throw it too much. The whole thing didn’t quite work out and what’s why you saw a change and all that.”
x: @raidersbeat
Well I hope it was Pete that wanted Jeanty over Membou. That was the rumor