If Chip Kelly was public enemy no. 1 among Raiders fans, offensive line coach Brennan Carroll probably comes in at no. 2 for the current and ongoing mess of a season for the offensive line.
Carroll, of course, is head coach Pete Carroll’s son, but Sports Illustrated insider Hondo Carpenter stood on a comment that he made in the offseason and still believes the younger Carroll is a capable offensive line coach.
“I want you to go back to me, with me, to the hiring process last year… I said, if Pete comes, word around the NFL… was that Pete was looking at a couple of jobs, and he was going to bring his sons with him,” Carpenter said on the Las Vegas Raiders Insider podcast, referring to his comments from January.
“When I got tipped off that Pete was going to get the job, I made some phone calls because I wanted to be fair. And I said to people, tell me what you think of Brennan Carroll. I talked to some head coaches in college who coached against Brennan. Some guys that didn’t coach against him but were very aware of him.”
And one name in particular, a very very famous person, you’d all know who he was, and they all were like, ‘He’s a great coach. He’s Pete’s kid and you can tell Pete helped teach him how to coach. But he’s a good coach on his own. He’s not there because of his last name.'”
“So I have no problems with the hire of Brennan Carroll. Okay, I want to make that clear. I said it at the time.”
From there, Carpenter made an interesting comment, suggesting that the younger Carroll, in some cases, was simply following directions.
“I don’t believe in revisionist history. I’m not going to revision it now,” Carpenter continued. “But Brennan Carroll has bosses too. We’ll just leave it right there.”
So who is the boss Carpenter was referring to?
At face value it sounds like Kelly, but Hondo said several times on the same podcast that Kelly has bosses and surely, he isn’t saying Pete Carroll was the boss holding back his son.
Given that it’s been pretty well determined that Kelly was not in line with what the head coach wanted to do on offense, who do you suppose is the “boss” Carpenter was talking about?
Inquiring minds would love to know.
x: @raidersbeat
That is BSD… Baby Boy Brennan is Trash as a Coach. REAL Coaches Teach and Develop Players… Especially Young Players like 3rd Round Draft Choices!!! Each O-Lineman has regressed under his Tutelage…
Hondo Carpenter is nothing but a yes man, wouldn’t make a critical comment to save his life. Seems like most of our media personalities are nothing more than toadies to the powers that be. Bill Williamson is the only one with some integrity.
Yeah I like Bill. He’s the 9nly who isn’t a kiss arse. Vinny does let stuff slip though
With respect to Hondo, he has a job I’d love to have, now with that being said, Hondo says a lot of things, he also said Jim McMahon the raiders recently fired ST COACH was a well respected coach around the league, but everywhere he’s been that teams ST have been bad! So you can’t go on that, Hondo is saying nice things about these coaches because that’s his way that’s how he reports, I’m not saying he’s lying but he’s not telling the truth either, he does things like that during his podcast that someone’s getting traded or he just spoke to a former/current GM or HC & they shared some info with him but he can’t tell us who it’s all for clicks & views I understand it I don’t agree with it but I know why he does it very disingenuous
Pete Carroll has become a joke. He should have fired his son way before Kelly. But the problem is the head coach who continues to start Geno. Carroll should be fired immediately, why wait for the end of the season. It would be better if Pete resigned.
I don’t really think anyone can judge what Brennan’s contributions or weaknesses have been because of all that were hearing of the dysfunction between Kelly and Carroll. The OL coach does not design the blocking schemes, what the reads and adjustments are, what QB calls for blocking audibles are, etc. For all that we know he could be a great teacher of a very poor system.
Last year we saw the blocking transform over ight when Getsy was sent packing. Did they all suddenly get more talented? Did the OL coach changes? Or was it just a better scheme that doesn’t constant leave guys unblocked while doubling others?
This season I see the same thing. Half the time I see a breakdown it looks like slow decision making by the OL on dealing with their assignments. If the OL isn’t crystal clear and what to do for a given defensive front, then that add fraction of a second slow on their first step makes them look like they can’t block.
Let’s revisit this in a few weeks after Olsen has had some time to remove some of the more cancerous parts of Kelly’s system.