HENDERSON, Nev. — There haven’t been many days where fans of the Las Vegas Raiders felt good about their team. It has been one frustrating moment after another.
But Monday was different. Or at least it felt different.
The sun broke through the clouds and with it came the formal announcement of the latest attempt by owner Mark Davis to get it right. The hiring of Pete Carroll as head coach and John Spytek as general manager marked yet another new chapter for the franchise. But unlike previous tries at success, this one seems like it’s going to work.
You have Carroll, the gum-cracking, energetic head coach coming back to the NFL a year after his unceremonious parting of the ways following a long tenure in Seattle where he got the Seahawks to the Super Bowl twice and won it in 2014. He spent the last year teaching a class at USC, his stop prior to the Seahawks where the Trojans were at the apex of college football during his time in Troy.
There’s Spytek, who also has a Super Bowl ring from his time as assistant general manager in Tampa Bay, a guy who understands that building a successful NFL roster means more than just drafting the right guys. It’s about free agency, salary cap, working closely with the head coach and being on the same page as ownership.
And you have Tom Brady, who knows a thing or two about winning football. Davis relied on Brady’s knowledge and gave him significant input in making the changes from Antonio Pierce and Tom Telesco to Carroll and Spytek. A change in thinking and philosophy was definitely needed and credit Davis for not being stubborn and having a willingness to listen to someone besides himself.
“Every day you learn,” Davis said Monday. “That’s what you do.”
With the hires of Carroll and Spytek come optimism, excitement and most of all, hope for a franchise which has struggled mightily in the 21st Century. There appears to be a commitment from the GM and the coach to work together, to help change the culture and to learn from each other.
“Our character will be our future,” Spytek said.
Carroll said: “The culture is the players. But we’ll show them the way. The competition part is theirs to command. If you want to be a great team, you have to be a great teammate.”
It sounded good to Maxx Crosby, the Raiders’ all-pro defensive end who attended Monday’s news conference. He seemed to be enthused by what he heard and if Spytek is to be taken at his word about there being good players on the roster and his job is to go find more of them, then don’t look for Crosby to be leaving anytime soon.
Carroll’s infectious energy was clearly evident and he was fired up as expected as he takes on the newest challenge of being the NFL’s oldest head coach (he’ll be 74 in September).
“It’s never been about the accomplishments,” he said of his success during his football career. “It’s about the game. It’s about competing. It’s about being the best you can be and a program and giving everyone a chance to be the best we can be.”
To that end, Carroll expects to build his staff with a mixture of familiar faces from his days with the Seahawks along with retaining some of Pierce’s staff while bringing in fresh faces to work with.
“It’s an exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” Carroll said of his coaching the Raiders. “You’re either competing or you’re not. If you’re not having fun, you’re screwing up.”
But the most important person for Carroll to be able to work with is Spytek. They need to be on the same page if the Raiders are to get to where they want and need to go. They both said the right things about each other Monday, which is what you would expect them to do. But in the days, weeks and months ahead, as the Raiders retool their roster and get ready for the NFL draft in April, some tough decisions are going to take place involving both coach and GM along with ownership.
And while Brady wasn’t there at the news conference Monday, both Spytek and Carroll mentioned and praised him often. You can expect Brady will have input on every major decision going forward as he puts his stamp on things.
So here we go. One hire who is starting his career as a general manager, the other who is winding up his career in a return to the sidelines as the head coach. Will it work? Given what the past has shown with the Raiders, it’s worth a shot to try.