LAS VEGAS — For the Raiders, things ended as good as one could expect. But in the end, it wasn't enough to keep Pete Carroll employed as the team's head coach.
Less than 24 hours after Las Vegas closed out a miserable season on Sunday with a win and secured the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, the team moved on from Carroll, who had just completed his first year of a three-year deal after the Raiders went 3-14..
The 14-12 win over the Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium snapped a 10-game losing streak. Daniel Carlson’s 60-yard field goal with eight seconds remaining, his fourth field goal of the afternoon, brought some joy to a locker room that has been full of frustration and anger for nearly three months.
Still, when you’re 3-14, they’re not throwing you any parades down the Las Vegas Strip. And everyone’s waiting to see what’s next for the Silver and Black.
It started with the dismissal of Carroll, who defiantly said after the game he’s not quitting. There’s been speculation Carroll would accept a buyout from the Raiders and retire. But he was having none of it.
“I definitely want to be back,” he said. “Nobody has talked to me about (retirement).”
The players apparently wanted him back as well.
“We love Pete,” Carlson said. “We enjoy playing for him.”
But that decision wasn’t be the players’ to make. It was majority owner Mark Davis, minority owner Toim Brady and general manager John Spytek who determined Carroll’s fate and thery apparently have decided to move on.
Since the team moved to Las Vegas from Oakland there have been five different head coaches. Whoever the coach is, he’ll likely be working with a new quarterback as Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza figures to be taken with the top pick in the draft.
There’s a possibility the team’s best and most popular player, Maxx Crosby, is moved. If that’s the case, he’ll join a long list of talented but disgruntled players who asked for and were granted their exit from Oakland/Las Vegas.
I can only imagine the anger and despair among the Raider Nation fan base. I read their messages on social media. I hear them in Allegiant Stadium. They’ve seen this act time and again and it has grown old. Real old.
If it had worked in the past, perhaps they could accept it and have a little more patience. But it hasn’t. Two playoff appearances since Mark Davis took over running the Raiders from his father after Al Davis died in 2011? No postseason victories since 2002? The last Super Bowl title was in 1984 when the Raiders were in Los Angeles and Washington, the team they beat, was called the Redskins.
Right now, a Super Bowl appearance for the Silver and Black is a galaxy away. The playoffs themselves see like a distant reach. When you’re 3-14, that’s the reality you live in.
So the Raiders control the top of the draft. The last time that happened was in 2007 and they took JaMarcus Russell. I don’t need to remind you how that worked out. Hopefully they’ll do better with Mendoza, the Heisman Trophy winner who has led Indiana to the College Football Playoff semifinals, assuming that’s who they select come April.
Everyone has an opinion on how to move forward. Many subscribe to a total rebuild, tear it all down and start from scratch. Others think that building around Crosby, Brock Bowers, Ashton Jeanty and a couple others while getting injured players like Kolton Miller healthy and back on the field is the way to go. Still others want to see Brady take a far more active and public role in running the franchise while there are those who think bringing him into the fold was a monumental mistake and that Davis should buy him out.
The last one’s not happening. But as the majority owner of the Raiders, it starts with Davis. It seems like I say and write this each year about Davis bearing the ultimate responsibility for the franchise, yet it winds up being worse than the previous year. Or have you forgotten the names Mike Mayock, Dave Ziegler, Tom Telesco and Champ Kelly?
I’m not ready to throw Spytek, the current general manager on top of that scrap heap just yet. It’s still perplexing to me that we never heard from him virtually the entirety of this abysmal season. But now that we’re at the end, he should have to emerge from the Cone of Silence and speak.
I want to hear from him directly as to what his plan is to rebuild this team? Who is he going to hire to be the head coach? How much influence is Brady going to have going forward? Will he accommodate Crosby and move him to a contender in the hopes of giving him the chance to win a ring while giving the Raiders some tangible assets going forward? Think a couple of first-round picks and a serviceable player who can step in and contribute right away.
Unfortunately, bringing a 74-year-old head coach back to the sidelines didn’t work. It didn’t help when his hand-picked quarterback Geno Smith led the NFL in sacks taken and interceptions thrown. Yes, the never-ending array of injuries along the offensive line, to Bowers as well as on the defensive side, including Crosby and Jeremy Chinn, and firing the offensive coordinator and special teams coordinator certainly didn’t help matters.
Carroll believed he could will the Raiders to success based on his vast experience. He predicted the team would win a bunch of games. Of course, that didn’t happen. He failed to give the rookies Spytek drafted other than Jeanty a chance to consistently show whether or not they could play. By the time he did, it was too late to make a sound assessment.
The fact he hired two of his sons to be on his staff didn’t help his cause either. Especially when Chip Kelly and Tom McMahon were let go and Nate and Brennan Carroll were retained didn’t sit well with many fans.
But football is a game where success or failure is based on the sum of its parts, not individuals. In the case of the Raiders, they didn’t have the depth to overcome the failures and injuries. Thus, you wind up with a 3-14 season and Carroll may very well be a one-and-done coach in Las Vegas.
I’d like to think Davis is as angry, frustrated and despondent as his fan base. But unlike his fans, he’s the one person who can do something about it. So far, his attempts have come up well short of what is needed. At least with his NFL team.
Whoever the next head coach is going forward, that person needs to bring in an offensive coordinator who can develop a young NFL quarterback. Perhaps a new defensive coordinator is needed as well. But things need to change around here, or at least show a semblance of upward mobility.
Winning a 14-12 game where you need four field goals and a safety to get the W is not upward mobility. The Chiefs were without several starters, including quarterback Patrick Mahomes. So this wasn’t the Kansas City team we’re used to seeing as evidenced by the Chiefs finishing 6-11 and out of the playoffs.
“It was fun as hell,” Carroll said of his year in Vegas. “We were able to carry through without many rewards. But there’s a good foundation and mentality for us going forward.”
Fun? Really?
The Raiders used to declare themselves as “Pro Football’s Dynamic Organization.” These days, it’s more like “Pro Football’s Dysfunctional Organization.” And if that offends Mark Davis, Tom Brady and the team’s front office, good. Let them change the narrative then by getting the next series of decisions right.
Meanwhile, the Raiders are on the clock, not only for the draft but for their search for their next head coach. That’s going to be a couple of decisions they can’t afford to get wrong.