INDIANAPOLIS — If you have to ask new Raiders coach Pete Carroll if he feels a sense of urgency to win immediately, you probably don’t know Pete Carroll very well.
Just to be clear, though, the answer is a resounding yes.
“I’m not looking for any grace period or something,” Carroll said. “You know, a cushy little, ‘Give me a few years to get it going.’ I don’t think that way at all. I’m talking today. Tomorrow.”
Carroll wants to right the Raiders as soon as possible, which explains the club’s interest in luring Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford to Las Vegas. Why else would a 4-13 team be so motivated to add a 37-year-old former Super Bowl winner?
Whether Stafford ultimately ends up with the Raiders is secondary to the message the pursuit sends. They want to compete sooner rather than later.
Carroll, who declined to discuss Stafford at the NFL scouting combine Monday, has made it clear the Raiders will attempt to win right away.
“It should weigh into every single decision we make,” Carroll said. “We’re trying to take it as far as we can as soon as we possibly can. Why would we do anything but that?”
Quick turnarounds
Carroll, 73, has turned around teams quickly before.
USC was 5-7 the year before he took over the program in 2001. The Trojans won 11 games his second season and were national champions by his third.
Carroll was hired by the Seahawks in 2010 after the team missed the playoffs two years in a row. Seattle was Super Bowl champions by his fourth season in charge.
He sees no reason to believe things will take longer this time around.
“This is not a different process than the last couple of times I had a shot at it,” Carroll said. “It does take some time to get your foothold, and we’ve got a lot of philosophy and approach that is unique to the way we do things that takes some time to get that going. Meanwhile, (it starts) right now. And so that’s a really fun part of it. The urgency is there.”
Carroll has developed a close rapport with new general manager John Spytek and minority owner Tom Brady as he looks to put his stamp on the Raiders. He and Spytek see team building the same way and their relationship has only grown in their first month together. Brady, meanwhile, is in constant contact with the two as they plot the Raiders’ next steps.
“To feel the continuity of our competitiveness and our approach and outlook and how we want to picture this thing coming together, it’s just as solid as it could possibly be,” Carroll said. “And I couldn’t be more fired up about it, because when Tom talks and when John talks and when I talk, we’re talking the same language. It’s been a seamless start to this thing. And so I didn’t know, I didn’t know that till we started hanging out.”
Spytek agreed the chemistry with Carroll has been natural.
“It’s awesome for me. I mean, the first time I was on the phone with him, I’m like, ‘I’m on the phone with Pete Carroll,’” Spytek said. “He loves football. He’s so invested in it. It’s just really reassuring to me that he’s supported me a lot, he’s bouncing ideas off of me. He’s fired up to come to work every day. He’s got me questioning my youth.”
Contact Vincent Bonsignore at [email protected]. Follow @VinnyBonsignore on X.
