FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Pete Carroll has a formula and boy, does it work.
The 73-year-old coach is now 25-11 when bringing an NFL team three time zones east for a 10 a.m. PT kickoff. The latest such victory came in his Raiders debut Sunday.
The team beat New England 20-13 at Gillette Stadium in a sometimes driving rain after trailing 10-7 at halftime.
I’m not sure how many Raiders teams of recent memory would have pulled this off. Not a lot. But Carroll kept his group energized and engaged. He and his coaching staff made the right adjustments. They were just better than their counterparts standing along the Patriots’ sideline.
Carroll’s players will tell you it’s all in the preparation. That arriving two days early rather than one helped. That meetings were extra productive. That coaches were waiting to greet players when they woke up Sunday.
That a tone was set before arriving at the stadium.
A clear message
“Coach has his way of going about things and it really works,” quarterback Geno Smith said. “Obviously, we still have to go out and execute but (Carroll) just has a way about him and he understands exactly how he wants things done.”
Carroll has talked about competing since the day he was hired in January. And his team did just that Sunday.
It wasn’t perfect. But the Raiders, for at least one game, answered some of the questions surrounding them this preseason. Mostly the ones about the defense.
The unit was terrific in the second half, getting off the field time and again. The Raiders applied pressure, and the Patriots barely moved the ball.
Smith, in his debut as the starting quarterback, threw for 362 yards on a day the team couldn’t run a lick. He spread the ball around and made enough plays for the Raiders to start the season 1-0.
“We know it’s a challenge coming from the West Coast, but (Carroll) had us so prepared,” running back Dylan Laube said. “Everyone was mentally prepared from the first snap. It sounds crazy, but he just makes this whole thing work. This entire team revolves around his energy. It’s just so different.”
The players all exuded such happiness. There is a different vibe with Carroll as coach. The team has totally bought into the messaging that Smith talks about. And that’s important for a club that just might reside in the NFL’s toughest division in the AFC West.
You saw it Sunday. The Raiders bent but didn’t break. They weren’t at their best and yet still discovered a way to win on the road.
This sort of victory can be something the team builds on. The Raiders came across the country and got the job done. They didn’t let adversity affect their performance.
Keep it going
“A good win,” Carroll said. “Really important for us to come from behind and win this game in the second half. We believed the whole way that we were going to find a way.”
And they believe in him.
The Raiders of recent times would have been hard pressed to win this one.
But it’s Carroll coming west to east.
Not a sure thing, but in the NFL, it’s as close as you’re going to get.
“East Coast, we really don’t mind coming out here,” Carroll said, smiling. “Maybe we can keep that going.”
Ed Graney, a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing, can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on X.