A pivotal offseason for the Las Vegas Raiders will now include finding a new head coach.
Pete Carroll was fired after one season in the role, the Raiders announced Monday.
“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,” owner Mark Davis said in a statement.
The Raiders went 3-14, tying them for the worst record in the NFL and giving them the No. 1 overall pick in April’s draft.
They had lost 10 games in a row before Sunday’s 14-12 victory over a Kansas City Chiefs team that was down to its third-string quarterback.
Las Vegas hired Carroll, 74, last January with the hope that the former Super Bowl and NCAA champion would provide stability for the rebuilding Raiders.
Following the addition of Carroll, the Raiders hired Chip Kelly as offensive coordinator, traded for veteran quarterback Geno Smith and drafted running back Ashton Jeanty with the No. 6 overall pick.
But the Raiders finished last in scoring (14.2 points per game) and total offense (245.2 yards per game) this season, during which Kelly was fired in November.
Carroll is now 173-134-1 in 19 NFL seasons as the head coach of the Jets, New England Patriots, Seattle Seahawks and Raiders. He led Seattle to a Super Bowl victory after the 2013 season.
He also won back-to-back NCAA championships as the head coach at USC in 2003-04.
Spytek, who is entering his second year as Las Vegas GM, and Brady, a partial Raiders owner, are now tasked with hiring the franchise’s fifth full-time head coach since the team moved from Oakland in 2020.
That is the first order of business in an offseason in which the Raiders will also look to acquire a franchise quarterback. That could very well be Heisman-winning Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza, who is expected to be the No. 1 pick in the draft.
Story by Peter Sblendorio, New York Daily News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
