Former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll is officially the next leader of the Las Vegas Raiders. After one year away from the sport, Carroll is back in black… literally. The Super Bowl XLVIII champion will now attempt to work his rebuilding/culture setting magic once more in Sin City with a Raiders team that’s been lost in the wilderness for the better part of two full decades.
However, it won’t be an easy road for Carroll, as the AFC West is now brimming with top coaches in all four teams. Andy Reid leads the Kansas City Chiefs, Carroll’s former arch rival Jim Harbaugh is with the Los Angeles Chargers, and Sean Payton is now entering his third year with the Denver Broncos. When looking at the resume’s of all four men, it is an embarrassment of riches.
The four AFC West head coaches—Andy Reid, Jim Harbaugh, Sean Payton, and Pete Carroll—now have a combined 20 Conference Championship appearances and nine Super Bowl appearances. https://t.co/t0myQXaeI6
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) January 24, 2025
Of course the bulk of those Super Bowl and conference championship appearances do come from Andy Reid. Reid has taken the Chiefs to four Super Bowls, and he went to one with the Philadelphia Eagles back in 2004. In total, he has 12 appearances in the conference championship round, seven with the Chiefs and five with the Eagles.
That being said, Carroll’s two trips to the Super Bowl are second only to Reid in the AFC West, having one more than both Harbaugh and Payton. His postseason record of 11-11 is better than Payton’s (9-9) and Harbaugh’s (5-4) as well.
It won’t be an easy path to success, and this Raiders job is arguably the greatest challenge of Carroll’s career. Yet I have a strong feeling this is exactly how Pete likes it.
Always compete… and just win, baby!
