Looking back: How Pete Carroll built the Seahawks in his image

He was right.

It took him and first-time general manager John Schneider just four years to take a 5-11 franchise with no Pro Bowlers and turn it into a Super Bowl winner. They achieved it largely through the draft and a constant churning of the roster in an effort to find players who fit the culture Carroll was trying to build.

Carroll believes it’s a model that can be replicated with the Raiders, who hired him Jan. 25 to replace Antonio Pierce.

“This is not a different process than the last couple times I had a shot at it,” Carroll said. “It does take some time to get your foothold, and we’ve got a of philosophy and approach that is unique to the way we do things that takes some time to get going. But the urgency is there.”

Raiders fans are hoping for that process to be accelerated for Carroll and another first-time general manager in John Spytek now that they have taken over a struggling franchise in Las Vegas.

It’s worth looking back on how Carroll built a championship roster in Seattle to get an idea of how he might try to rebuild the Raiders, employing what he calls a collaborative process with Spytek.

First draft

Carroll and Schneider’s first draft class was the foundation of their Super Bowl-winning team.

It produced five players who eventually were part of their championship roster, including four who combined to make 14 Pro Bowls.

Defensive backs Earl Thomas (first round, 14th overall) and Kam Chancellor (fifth round, 133rd overall) formed the foundation of the legendary “Legion of Boom” secondary that became the identity of the team’s glory years.

Offensive tackle Russell Okung (first round, sixth overall) anchored the offensive line, though his first few seasons were injury-plagued. Wide receiver Golden Tate was also part of the class as a second-round pick.

It was clear from the beginning Carroll wanted a team that could defend and run the ball, a vision further solidified when the Seahawks made an in-season trade for running back Marshawn Lynch.

But perhaps more important than the physical traits, Carroll wanted players who loved the game. Players who brought passion to the field and the locker room. Players who embraced competition every day.

Panthers coach Dave Canales, who came with Carroll from USC and was on the Seahawks staff until 2022, said Carroll looked for those traits in the evaluation process.

“I think they show up, first and foremost, on film,” Canales said. “You see guys with great energy on film and that aggressive style of play. Defensive guys attacking the football, offensive guys who take care of it. We had all different types of personalities over the years, but it’s really just at the end of the day, ‘Is this player passionate about football?’ And if he is, he’s got a chance of making it with us. That’s the hardest part to figure out.”

Fine-tuning

The Seahawks won the division in that first season and a wild-card game, but they weren’t a finished product. They had, after all, finished 7-9 in the regular season.

Longtime defensive leader K.J. Wright was taken in the fourth round in the 2011 draft, followed by another “Legion of Boomer” in cornerback Richard Sherman in the fifth round, as the Seahawks continued to find gems in the middle and late rounds. Their top four free-agent signings that year were all younger than 26.

The Seahawks took a step back in 2011, finishing 7-9 again and missing the playoffs. But the vision for what they would become was getting clearer, leading to eight playoff appearances in the next nine seasons.

One of the biggest pieces fell into place when the Seahawks took quarterback Russell Wilson in the third round of the 2012 draft.

While the importance of that selection should not be trivialized, it’s important to understand the context of all the groundwork that was laid to allow the team to take that next step under their new franchise quarterback, who made nine Pro Bowls with the team.

The Seahawks also grabbed 10-time Pro Bowl linebacker Bobby Wagner in the second round that year, placing them firmly on track for championship contention.

It wasn’t until the 2013 season when they appeared to know they were close, trading their first-round pick for playmaker Percy Harvin and adding veteran free agents to bolster the roster.

Constant tweaking

Perhaps the busiest people in the Seahawks’ facility were those responsible for stitching names on the jerseys of the new players and those assigning lockers.

The Seahawks made a staggering 284 roster transactions in the 2010 league year alone. They went well over 200 the following season. Only four players who were on the roster when Carroll took over were on the Super Bowl roster.

There was a method to the madness, however.

Competition is Carroll’s core principle, and he believes that can be fostered at every position on the roster and throughout the building.

It wasn’t about striking fear that no job is safe, but more about making sure everyone on the roster was embracing that spirit of competition.

“We started the whole thing out there looking for the right people to compete with and to make sure that we (would exhaust every avenue) to find the right guys,” Carroll said. “And we found some real success in the second half of the draft, in free agency.”

The number of transactions shrunk, as Carroll started to find the right mix. But the philosophy remained the same.

It’s one that led to an 11-5 season with a playoff appearance in his third year in Seattle and a Super Bowl championship in his fourth season. The 2013 Seahawks team that won the title had 63 players appear in a game, with an average age of 25.7.

Carroll and Schneider drafted 21 of those players from 2010 to 2013. Another eight were undrafted free agents. They found “Legion of Boomer” Brandon Browner in the Canadian Football League, where he had spent four seasons.

Carroll hopes to replicate his formula in Las Vegas

“Every opportunity we’ve had so far, we feel like we’ve exhausted the best shot to get the toughest, most physical guys that love the game,” he said. “Guys that it’s more important than anything in their life but their families.”

Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on X.