During his time in Seattle, Carroll worked well with general manager John Schneider, building a perennial contender from the ground up. This time around, he’ll be working in tandem with new general manager John Spytek and will remain very open to input from a minority owner in Tom Brady, who once beat Carroll’s Seahawks in the Super Bowl and won a title for the Buccaneers while Spytek served in their front office.
Doing so would be wise, especially when considering the Raiders’ lack of a long-term plan at the position Brady played. That’s where Carroll’s and Spytek’s roster building efforts will begin.
Pete Carroll to build Raiders around QB position with Tom Brady’s insight: ‘We happen to have the greatest of all time to help us’
“I would add to that that it’s our mission to build this football team up around the quarterback position,” Carroll said. “We happen to have the greatest of all time to help us, and to see clearly, and we’re going to lean on Tom as much as we possibly can for his insights because nobody has the insights he has. He’s that unique. But the quarterback position is one of the positions on the team, and we’ve got to make it all fit together well.
“I’ve had pretty good success with my quarterback in the past, going all the way back to college days and they’ve all turned out to be really extraordinary members of our club. There’s a way to embrace the challenge that the quarterback has from the rest of the football team as well. We need to support our guy, and we need to do what we can to make that work. It’s really about making a great football team around the quarterback position.”
In Seattle, Carroll had third-round pick Russell Wilson, who arrived to the Seahawks as an expected backup to Matt Flynn and won the job outright before the start of his first regular season. That sequence kicked off a decade-long run of success, including two NFC titles, one Super Bowl victory and a host of playoff appearances.
Las Vegas currently lacks such an option on their roster. Aidan O’Connell returns for his third year and was clearly the Raiders’ best player at the position, but carries a ceiling fit more for a long-term plus backup than a franchise quarterback. On paper, the Raiders need a solution under center.
Players like Brady don’t just grow on trees, but the legend offers the Raiders a blueprint for what they’d like to find in their next franchise signal-caller.
“I got a chance to be around in my opinion the greatest player ever, it was a love of the game and a competitive desire that just didn’t allow him to quit,” Spytek said of Brady. “He was never out of a fight. He was willing to do things the ordinary football person wasn’t willing to do.
“We’re going to turn over every stone to find that leader for this team, too. There’s just going to be certain requirements of the job. It doesn’t necessarily take the strongest arm or the best thrower. It’s the guys that will push their teammates to a place that’s uncomfortable. That will give almost another to win, that’s what the best ones do, and we’re going to find one of those.”
