Browns and Falcons both win their last game of the regular season, but fire their head coaches.
Unfortunately for us, you can't fire an owner, which is really where we need to start.
Well, it can be done, but not for losing.
Raiders fired Pete Carroll too.
It's sad to see Pete go, but it's time. He proved relentlessly adaptable and resilient as a coach throughout his career, but in the end he couldn't pull it off again. The dirty little secret about his success in Seattle was that John Schneider could manage and mitigate Pete's tendency to go all in on players, and Schneider had the better eye for talent. Pete chafed under that, and became increasingly resistant to what needed to be done. Set free to do things his own way, he remained true to form and loyal to "his" guys...and it failed. The game has changed, and passed him by. It happens to every coach, even the legends, eventually - and sooner than they're willing to admit.
I think that's a fair assessment.
Pete's arrival in Seattle coincided with my interest in really understanding American football. The Seattle Cover 3 defensive scheme was really novel, and confounded the NFL because it changed the advantageous attributes for players at various defensive positions, and because it used very simple concepts. It was the defensive scheme manifestation of Peter Collins' counsel to "Get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats."
But after Pete and Dan Quinn had done that, and the Seahawks had gone to two Super Bowls, the NFL figured it out and changed its presuppositions. So it was harder to get the right people for the scheme, and harder to leverage mismatches. And the scheme is heavily dependent on the quality of the talent.
Everybody remembers the Seahawks losing Super Bowl 49 on a bad play call that led to an INT. But that wasn't where that game was really lost. It was the gruesome injury to Jeremy Lane that forced substitution of 3rd string CB Tharold Simon, and that allowed Tom Brady to engineer a fourth quarter comeback. The Seahawks had to put a weaker player in the seat, against the GOAT QB. And Brady exploited hell out of that to give the Patriots the lead.
