Pete Carroll is one and done in Las Vegas.
The Raiders have fired Carroll following a 3-14 first season with the team, owner Mark Davis announced on Monday.
The decision comes at the end of a campaign that unraveled in a hurry for the Silver and Black, as the Raiders watched a season brimming with optimism following a Week 1 win over the Patriots fall into disarray thanks to 14 defeats over their final 16 contests that led to Las Vegas securing the No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 draft.
Davis on Monday also indicated that minority owner Tom Brady will take on a larger role within the franchise and will be a key voice in the search for Carroll's replacement.
"We appreciate and wish (Carroll) and his family the best," Davis said in a statement. "Moving forward, general manager John Spytek will lead all football operations in close collaboration with Tom Brady, including the search for the club's next head coach. Together, they will guide football decisions with a shared focus on leadership, culture, and alignment with the organization's long-term vision and goals."
Nearly nothing worked for the 2025 Raiders, who finished tied for the worst record in the NFL. They struggled mightily on both sides of the ball; Carroll fired special teams coordinator Tom McMahon on Nov. 7 and offensive coordinator Chip Kelly on Nov. 24.
Handed an additional five defeats after moving on from Kelly, Carroll, 74, was dismissed on the heels of a 14-12 win over the Chiefs in the regular-season finale, which at long last snapped Las Vegas' dreadful 10-game losing streak.
A coach known for his boundless energy and optimism, Carroll had been a proven culture builder throughout his 19 years as an NFL head coach, during which he’s gone 173-134-1 helming the Jets, Patriots, Seahawks and Raiders, and won Super Bowl XLVII with Seattle. His magic worked much the same way from 2001-09 at USC, where he went 97-19.
So many of his rosters -- especially during the height of his success in college with the Trojans and in the NFL with the Seahawks -- took to his teachings and visibly shared his vigor on the field.
That was not so for the Raiders, who struggled to forge an identity on either side of the ball and lost games in myriad ways, from wire-to-wire blowouts to heartbreaking last-second misses.
Carroll emerged in the Raiders’ head-coaching search last cycle following a one-year hiatus from the sidelines, during which he had been serving in an advisory role for the Seahawks after 14 years as their coach.
One of Carroll’s first and splashiest orders of business was, alongside Spytek, trading a third-round pick to Seattle in March to reunite with quarterback Geno Smith.
Smith had revived his career in the Emerald City under Carroll, leading the league in completion percentage on the way to winning the 2022 AP Comeback Player of the Year and going on to make two straight Pro Bowls.
Smith’s arrival was meant to usher Las Vegas off the carousel of ineffective signal-callers in the post-Derek Carr era that included Gardner Minshew, Aidan O'Connell, Desmond Ridder, Jimmy Garoppolo and Brian Hoyer.
Instead, Smith's play regressed. He led the NFL with 17 interceptions, was uncharacteristically timid in the pocket and struggled with inconsistency.
The Raiders’ wayward season doesn’t fall entirely on Smith’s shoulders, of course. Other issues have compounded to result in ineffectiveness across the board.
Rookie running back Ashton Jeanty, selected No. 6 overall, delivered a small handful of monster games that proved himself worthy of such a high pick. However, those Herculean spurts mostly made a disappointing debut season more maddening, as he was sometimes deployed too sparingly and almost always found it tough sledding behind one of the league's worst offensive lines.
Though he turned things on late with four TDs over his final three games, tight end Brock Bowers had minimal help in the pass-catching department. He spent the early portion of the season banged up with a knee injury and was placed on injured reserve with two games remaining as Las Vegas narrowed in on landing the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft. So, too, was pass rusher Maxx Crosby, despite playing 100% of defensive snaps across his last five starts. Jakobi Meyers, the team’s WR1 entering the season, was traded to the Jaguars at the deadline, played a role in unlocking another level of Jacksonville's offense and signed a three-year extension to stay in Duval.
While the defense has performed marginally better, placing near league average in passing yards and rushing yards surrendered, there's a void of big names outside Crosby, a deficit further highlighted in the months after the Raiders released defensive tackle Christian Wilkins toward the end of July.
There's been a ton of work required to try to get things right, but Carroll has long specialized in turning organizations around.
It’s part of the reason he made sense as head coach of the Raiders, who prior to hiring him had experienced just two playoff trips in the 22 seasons since losing Super Bowl XXXVII.
However, with Las Vegas’ foundation featuring a dearth of true difference makers, the scope of the rebuild ahead is daunting -- even with the first overall pick in the '26 draft. Perhaps the timeline to competing for division titles doesn’t entirely align with Carroll, already the oldest head coach in NFL history, leading the way.
If he does not go on to wear the headset elsewhere, his NFL head-coaching career will end much the same way it began.
At the age of 43, he was fired after his first season with the Jets following a 6-10 finish. Now, at the age of 74, he’s been fired after his first season with the Raiders following a 3-14 campaign.
The Raiders, meanwhile, must work on hiring yet another head coach after their three most recent staffs have each lasted less than two full seasons.