When Pete Carroll was hired by the Seattle Seahawks in 2010, his first loss came against the Denver Broncos. When he won Seattle’s first ever Super Bowl in the 2013 season, his legendary squad hammered the record-breaking Broncos and crushed Peyton Manning. When Russell Wilson was traded to the Broncos in 2022, Pete’s first post-Wilson win memorably came on opening night against Denver.
In 2025, Pete Carroll’s 11th loss of a miserable Las Vegas Raiders season came versus… the Denver Broncos.
Yes, the Raiders had zero chance to beat the Broncos and the game was not as close as the 24-17 score suggests. Denver was up 24-7 with a few minutes to go, Kenny Pickett (who filled in for an injured Geno Smith in the fourth quarter) threw a touchdown with a couple of minutes left, then the fun really began if you had… extra interest in this one.
For whatever reason, Denver safety Brandon Jones committed a silly delay of game penalty on a play that would’ve run the clock to 0:00. The penalty gave the Raiders the ball in long field goal range with :05 left, which is the usual time that runs off the clock on a long field goal attempt. From 46 yards out, Daniel Carlson’s kick was good and predictably time expired.
At 2-11, this is the confirmed worst season of Carroll’s otherwise distinguished coaching career. He’d never lost more than 10 in his worst NFL years, and was used to winning 10 games in college. As things stand, the Raiders hold the No. 2 overall pick in the draft and have a real shot at No. 1 thanks to the Tennessee Titans and New Orleans Saints both winning.
Why was this Carlson field goal a ‘bad beat,’ though? Well, if you know your gambling, the Raiders were down 10 and generally closed as 7.5 to 8.5-point underdogs. Carlson’s kick was the difference between the Raiders covering the spread or not, and this was like a Scooby Doo trap door leading to the back door for bad beats. I’ll spare you the caustic social media conspiracy theories.
Carroll wasn’t asked about this decision in the post-game press conference. There was literally zero chance of victory at this point but I guess you still have to “Always Compete.”
The Raiders have the Philadelphia Eagles, Houston Texans, New York Giants, and Kansas City Chiefs to close out the season. That might be 2-15 right there and the worst season in the history of the franchise, with the Giants serving as an interesting “tank-off” matchup in Week 17.
As I said a few weeks back, perhaps this is a reverse Tom Flores. When the Seahawks hired Tom Flores to replace Chuck Knox, he was a Super Bowl champion with the Raiders and a complete disaster in Seattle (and he got three years!). Carroll won a Super Bowl with the Seahawks, brought them to another one, and he’s been a complete disaster in Las Vegas. If you dislike Carroll, maybe you enjoy it, but otherwise this has been the season from hell when you consider the alternative was just not coaching again after narrowly missing the playoffs in his final season with the Seahawks.
Maybe there’s still an honorary role/job title for Pete in Seattle, because it’s impossible to justify a second go-round in Vegas.
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