I know that Pete Carroll is supposed to be some sort of new-age gridiron guru, but to me, he’ll always be the hapless fool that lost his last five games in his sole year as head coach of the Jets before getting the boot. That ignominious streak began, of course, when Dan Marino faked the Jets coach out with a bluffed spike in the closing seconds of a must-win game for both teams.
OK, that was 20-plus years ago, and Carroll has since ascended to the coaching pantheon by winning not only a Super Bowl, but also a few national championships at USC. Then again, that’s a feat matched by Barry Switzer, and I’m not sure he could tell you how many points there are in a two-point conversion.
Really though, you can’t deny that Carroll has put together a very impressive resume since being kicked out of New York all those years ago, and he deserves much of the accolades tossed his way -- even if this is the same guy who inexplicably decided to throw the ball instead of hand it off to Beast Mode at the end of Super Bowl XLIX (I think that’s 49, but don’t hold me to it).
To me, though, it comes down to a few numbers: 47-49 and 48-19. The first set is Carroll’s career head-coaching record before the 2012 season, when he and Seahawks GM John Schneider decided to use a third-round pick on an undersized QB from Wisconsin named Russell Wilson. The second set is Seattle’s -- and Carroll’s -- record since Wilson became the starting signal-caller.
If, to quote Bill Parcells, you are what your record says you are, then without Wilson, Carroll is a sub-.500, twice-fired coach who went 14-18 in his first two seasons in Seattle. With Wilson, Carroll is Vince Lombardi.
Undoubtedly, it wasn’t just the quarterback who made the Hawks as good as any team in football over the past few years. The defense was arguably the NFL’s best during that time, and the aforementioned Beast -- aka Marshawn Lynch -- was the toughest RB in the league.
Still, no one was ever better than Wilson in their first four years at the most important position in sports.
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When Seattle comes to MetLife Stadium on Sunday, though, they do so as a squad not resembling the mighty Hawks of recent seasons -- at least not on offense. After scoring around 25 points a game since Wilson took over, they’re averaging just 17 through the first three weeks of the 2016 campaign, and most of their output came in one game -- a 37-18 drubbing of the sorry 49ers. Wilson appears a bit off without the retired Lynch and the injured Thomas Rawls, and behind a mess of an offensive line.
But he’s still Russell Wilson, and the Hawks remain one of the NFL’s elite teams -- even if their coach will always be a clown to us New Yorkers.
