Bad Idea, or Terrible Idea?

*If you don't care about the NFL or College Football, feel free to skip this post. We'll return to our usual program of talking about TV tomorrow.

So, late yesterday afternoon news began to break that the Seattle Seahawks had fired their head coach, Jim Mora. While it seemed a little fast to fire him after only one season, I personally never knew what the fascination was with him in the first place. I always thought he was better suited to stay as a coordinator or position coach. They brought Mora in two seasons ago to be a "Coach In Waiting" under Mike Holmgren, who was close to retirement. (The whole "Coach In Waiting" thing bugs the hell out of me anyway, but that is another post for another day.) Then Seahawk management kicked Holmgren out the door in favor of Mora when Holmgren was having second thoughts about retirement, despite the fact that Holmgren has won a Super Bowl and Mora's win percentage has gone down each year he has been a head coach.

Now, even though Seattle is one of my Top-5 favorite U.S. cities, this wouldn't in and of itself be worthy of it's own blog post. I'm not a big Seahawks guy and their success or failure is barely a blip on my radar screen. But, shortly after it was announced that Mora was fired, news started to leak out that Pete Carroll, the former Patriot and current USC coach, was the leading candidate to take the job. Ok, now color me interested. I've been intrigued by Pete Carroll ever since he turned USC back into a national powerhouse, because I truly did not see it coming after he left the Patriots. I assumed his rah-rah, hokey style would play better in the college ranks, but not to the point he would be considered one of the best college coaches of the era. That is what makes him leaving USC such a bad idea.

Carroll is a god at the college level and is in a perfect situation. He has a huge recruiting base, great tradition and a beautiful, southern California campus full of hot co-eds and beaches to use as a recruiting tool. Also, with no NFL team in the area, they only have to compete with UCLA for football dominance in the largest TV market in the country. USC doesn't have to recruit, they can sit back and let the best of the best come to them. They play in a very good conference, which means lots of games on national TV and with their talent level and reputation they are in the discussion for the National Championship at the start of every season. It is a great job, one that any college coach would love to have... which is why leaving it makes no sense. You know sometimes, when everyone is telling you how great your situation is, you should listen to them. Carroll is going from one of the great programs in college football with a stud sophomore quarterback who is only going to get better, to a rebuilding NFL team in a crappy division and a quarterback who is calcifying as we speak. The grass is not always greener.

Now, at least from Carroll's side of the aisle I can at least understand why he would considered this move. He probably thinks there is a huge hole in his resume due to his perceived lack of NFL success and he probably gets annoyed at how people consider his NFL coaching career as a failure, even though his career record is above .500 with only one losing season. It's not like he is Cam Cameron. In addition, he's got some upcoming NCAA violations to deal with, so maybe now is a good time to pull a Calipari and move on. Another factor is that Carroll is now in his late 50's, which means pretty soon people are going to stop putting him on their wish lists. There is a point that all college coaches reach where the professional ranks stop considering them for vacancies. For example, when Mike Kryzewski turned down the Lakers job a couple years ago, it pretty much signalled the end of any NBA aspirations he had. He's a college lifer now and I doubt he ever even interviews for another NBA job. Carroll's name hadn't come up in the past couple of years, so he must have figured this was his last chance to prove himself at the professional level. When you add up all the factors, I guess you can understand why he's doing this (still doesn't mean it's a good idea to take the job).

The side I don't get is with the Seahawks, because not only are they looking for him to coach, they want him to be President as well, having final say on personnel decisions. This is a horrendous idea. Nothing about Pete Carroll's job history makes me think he has any idea how a salary cap works. Also, the Seahawks just took this power away from Mike Holmgren a couple years ago because he couldn't do both jobs, so why give it to a guy with no track record of being able to run an NFL front office? I have visions of Steve Spurrier redux here, with Carroll just trying to pull in as many USC guys as possible. (Something tells me that he could have Matt Leinart, no problem.) By going to the NFL Carroll is stripping himself of his greatest weapon - his personality. The NFL is a business. You can try and coax a guy to sign with you and woo him all you want, but at the end of the day, it is about money. Also, you can have as rich an NFL owner as you want (and with Paul Allen, he does), but that doesn't mean you can buy a championship. Ask the Redskins how that is working. If you don't know how to structure bonuses and contracts, at some point you're going to hit the salary cap, no matter who is writing the checks.

It just seems like a bad idea for Carroll to leave a good situation just to prove a point. Lots of college coaches couldn't pull off success at the next level and it is eventually forgotten as long as they started winning again at the college level. For the Seahawks it just seems like they are desperate to make a splash in any way they can and have promised a guy with no experience too much power just to pull in a big name. Then again, this could set the USC program back and as a Notre Dame fan, I am all for that. So, even if Carroll and the Seahawks get screwed in this deal, at least I can walk away happy.