The Seahawks had been floundering for 10 years under Carroll. His playoff record since the 2014 season is dismal. Carroll built his reputation as a defensive coach in the NFL, but hadn't fielded a top 10 defense since 2010.
Carroll has not had a significant victory in the playoffs since 2014 and since then the Seahawks have a losing record in the playoffs. Despite Carroll's wildly successful first 5 years, he has only a .500 record in the post season. In fact his only wins came against a 40 year old McCown, and injured Stafford and because of a go ahead chip shot field goal that was missed by Blair Walsh in the final seconds of the game.
Carroll also fielded some defenses that were historically bad defenses the last two years.
What makes thing worse is a defense with the most of the same players immediately had a large improvement underneath MacDonald.
Look, Carroll isn't a bad coach -- but he's made some huge missteps over the years. The guy has lost touch with the modern day NFL. He's a great motivator, but he's become disconnected with the X's and O's of the game. He struggled to transition to the modern NFL.
I appreciate what he did for us, but the guy was clearly struggling to deliver anything other than fringe wildcard teams. At the age of 74 come September he's not going to get any better. I can see him making the Raiders play better, but also still missing the playoffs by a sizable margin. It has been a bit like watching a relative in decline these last few years.
I love what Carroll did for us, but it was time we moved on. Also, if the Seahawks aren't doing jack this year, why do you think the Raiders will do any better? They're in a worse position and in a much more brutal division.
I think you got some dates messed up here.
First, our first post-Super Bowl defense that wasn't top -5- was in 2017, not 2014 (and certainly not 2010, which I assume was a typo).
The only defense that we fielded that would've even be considered 'below average' prior to hiring Hurtt was 2019 and we were a top 10 defense in 2021.
Where Pete went wrong was when he jettisoned Norton in favor of Clint Hurtt to try and modernize his D with that failed experiment with a 'Fangio-style' scheme. (Pete made some other well publicized moves that off-season, but in terms of his tenure as our coach, this was probably the most consequential.)
Pete then doubled down with Hurtt and produced the worst D he ever fielded as our coach (and that includes the first year coming off the end of Holmgren-era and the Mora debacle).
I honestly have a mixed opinion on whether Pete will actually be successful in Vegas (though I do hope for the best), but the popular opinion that 'our defense sucked for years after Super Bowl XLIX' isn't true.
We just got so used to a half decade of top 3-5 defenses that good to average defenses felt like garbage. The wheels didn't actually come off until 2022.
