Mike Salk gives Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll a pep talk in open letter
Nov 7, 2018, 10:39 AM
Pete Carroll's Seahawks hit the field for voluntary workouts this week. (AP)
(AP)
Pete Carroll seemed really low energy Monday during his weekly Pete Carroll Show on Brock and Salk, and I’ll confess that it didn’t pump me up like normal. Maybe we need to give Pete a pep talk! How would that look? What would that sound like?
Dear Pete,
You are 83-52-1 as the head coach of the Seahawks. You have six seasons in the league with double-digit wins. You are the most successful coach in Seahawks history and you are likely headed to the Hall of Fame.
But those are just numbers.
You are also unique. You are a game-changer. You brought your special brand of encouragement back to the NFL and made it cool to be a “players’ coach” for the first time. You empowered your guys to be themselves, to play on the edge and to handle adversity (sometimes by creating even more of it). You made practice fun for the players, the fans and – even though they’d never admit it – the media. You started the trend of blaring music and sometimes you even dance to it!
You changed the way teams look at the cornerback position. It was already growing in importance before you got to Seattle, but you popularized the notion that a taller corner could guard a taller receiver. I know it sounds obvious, but you were the pioneer.
You taught your defenders to tackle correctly even before the league cracked down on hard hits. You built the best defense of its era with speed off the edge, bone-crushing hits in the middle of the field and a smothering secondary.
You did all of that with swagger and bravado. And you stood tall during adversity. You took the high road when departing players went low. You assumed responsibility for things most coaches would pass off to assistants, GMs or the players themselves.
It’s OK to feel down. Your team is going through a transition, a turn, and the Seahawks didn’t play their best against the Chargers. Heck, maybe there are injuries coming down the pike that we don’t fully understand yet.
But you’ve picked us up so many times before. Maybe we can get you back just this once?
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