In case you missed it, yesterday Adam Schefter at ESPN shared a report that he couldn’t possibly have waited until the 26th to break: namely that former Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll has expressed interest in the Chicago Bears’ head coach job, which will be open this coming offseason following the firing of Matt Eberflus.
While it’s fair to point out that it’s convenient timing given that the Seahawks and Bears will be playing this evening on Thursday Night Football, one NFL pundit took it a step further and accused Schefter of acting as a shill for Pete Carroll’s agent. That would be Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. Here’s a portion of what he wrote about Schefter’s report.
Mike Florio on Schefter report
“Carroll, per the report/strategic leak, specifically has expressed interest in the Bears’ vacancy. Which obviously means nothing, unless the Bears have interest in Carroll. …It’s hard to fault Carroll’s agent for trying to use the media to get the word out about Carroll. That’s the agent’s job. It’s not the media’s job, however, to engage in quid pro quo P.R. for coaching candidates.
Naturally, Schefter didn’t like that. When he saw Florio’s article hit Twitter he responded.
Adam Schefter responds to Florio
“Everything you say here is 100 percent wrong. Keep up the guess work and Merry Christmas.”
Merry Christmas, indeed.
At this point we don’t know for sure if there’s any interest on the Bears’ part, but for what it’s worth Carroll might be exactly what they need. Chicago has historically preferred defensive head coaches, but the organization has been terrible at developing quarterbacks. That’s what sets Carroll apart from practically every other defensive head coach in the business – Pete knows his quarterbacks.
Going back to his time at USC Carroll has gotten strong QB play from Mark Sanchez and Carson Palmer and in Seattle he got good stuff out of Russell Wilson and Geno Smith. It wouldn’t take much imagination for Carroll to get the most out of number one overall draft pick Caleb Williams, who’s flashed a lot in his rookie season but has been held back by poor coaching and an even poorer offensive line.
Given how things went during his 14-year run in Seattle Pete probably wouldn’t be much help building up that Bears offensive line. However, we do know that Carroll could get the best out of Williams – at least more than any other defensive candidate in this next hiring cycle. To be continued…
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