RENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks and coach Pete Carroll have agreed on a contract extension, keeping the oldest head coach in the NFL locked up beyond the 2016 season.
RENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks and coach Pete Carroll have agreed on a contract extension, keeping the oldest head coach in the NFL locked up beyond the 2016 season.
Team owner Paul Allen tweeted confirmation of Carroll’s deal on Tuesday.
The move with the 64-year-old Carroll came just two days after the team locked up general manager John Schneider to a contract extension.
Both Carroll’s and Schneider’s current deals were set to expire after the 2016 season, but the tandem pairing that has brought the Seahawks unrivaled success in their franchise history will be teamed together for another few seasons.
Carroll is 60-36 in the regular season since becoming Seattle’s head coach in 2010. He’s taken the Seahawks to the playoffs in five of six seasons, including two Super Bowl appearances and the only title in franchise history.
Carroll’s deal was first reported by ESPN and said the extension goes through the 2019 season.
Whenever asked during the offseason about his contract situation, Carroll would shrug off the question saying “I’m good.”
But the lack of an extension fueled speculation that Carroll may be ready to take on a new role and walk away from being a head coach, no matter how often he indicated he was set on continuing in his position with Seattle.
“Everything is great. I’m under contract,” Carroll said at the conclusion of minicamp in June.
Carroll’s somewhat unconventional coaching methods have been proven successful in his third stint as an NFL head coach.
Given the autonomy over player personnel in concert with Schneider, the Seahawks are on a run of success never before seen in the Pacific Northwest with four straight playoff appearances that included the Super Bowl title after the 2013 season and a return trip to the Super Bowl a year later that came up 1-yard short of a possible repeat.
Seattle had five 10-win seasons in franchise history before Carroll arrived, and has reached double-digit victories in each of the past four seasons.
Carroll has constructed a team based around a core that includes the likes of Russell Wilson, Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Bobby Wagner and Doug Baldwin to name a few, and supplemented with talent around that targeted group.
The Seahawks have been competitive in nearly every game since the beginning of the 2012 season, never losing by more than 10 points since the middle of the 2011 season — regular and postseason combined.
And not surprising considering his background, Carroll’s defenses have been among the elite of the NFL despite going through three defensive coordinators in the past four seasons.
The Seahawks have been the best scoring defense in the NFL each of the past four seasons, becoming the first team since the Cleveland Browns in the mid-1950s to accomplish that feat.