pete carroll mark davis
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Pete Carroll with Mark Davis.
The Las Vegas Raiders‘ 2025 season is about to start, and there’s a lot of excitement around what new head coach Pete Carroll is building. However, his first year might be exactly how he envisioned it.
While the Raiders upgraded at a number of important positions, the roster has some big question marks, especially on the defensive side of the ball. The team is headed in the right direction, but it remains to be seen if the talent level is there for them to be a playoff team.
When discussing the upcoming Week 1 matchup against the New England Patriots, The Athletic’s Vic Tafur suggested that Carroll isn’t that excited about the state of the roster.
“Two pretty evenly matched teams with new coaches and a lot of catch phrases. Going deeper, we’ll take Patriots offensive coordinator and former Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels — look for some designed runs from Drake Maye — over his old defensive coordinator in Vegas, Patrick Graham,” Tafur wrote. “Though the Patriots under 8.5 wins was one of our favorite season-total bets, we get the impression that Pete Carroll is not that thrilled with his first Raiders roster. So, his eyesight as he approaches age 74 is still very good.”
Why Would Carroll Be Unhappy With Roster?
It’s not clear if Carroll or general manager John Spytek has final say on the roster. Regardless, Carroll obviously has a lot of power when it comes to roster decisions.
The Raiders decided against being aggressive in free agency, and there were plenty of big names available on the trade market that the team didn’t pursue. The plan appears to have been to see the state of the roster this season and then really make a run next season, so it makes sense why Carroll wouldn’t think the roster is in a great place right now.
Carroll Talks Week 1 Matchup
Carroll’s first game with the Raiders is coming against his former team, the Patriots. Both teams are in very similar situations, as they have new head coaches debuting on Sunday.
Carroll spoke about the upcoming matchup and how he differs from new Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel.
“No, I don’t know if I have the same approach as Coach [Mike] Vrabel. I’m not sure what it is, I’m just coming from the outside in just like you guys are observing,” Carroll told reporters on Friday. “But from our end of it, we always want to balance the game out, and we want to do a really good job to do that. And that takes both sides of the football and the kicking game to work together to make that happen.”
“Chip [Kelly] and I see eye to eye from the start, of this conversation that we had about coming here and all that, and I’m thrilled to be working with him, and I can’t wait to see it all come to light in not just the first game, but it’ll take us a month before you see really what we are and who we’re becoming.”