SEATTLE — To the decision-makers in Chicago, New York, Jacksonville, New Orleans, Las Vegas and Dallas:

Yes, you need to hire a coach.

But that's just the beginning.

What do you need, really? It's not someone who simply installs a system, steps back and waits for wins. It's not the latest budding branch on somebody else's tree. It's not that 30-something coordinator who can call a blitz on third-and-6 but can't embed belief.

There are newer names, sexier names, names that will win a news conference but crumble when it counts.

Granted, there are no sure things in the NFL.

But, historically, Pete Carroll is close.

Carroll, of course, compiled 11 winning records and 10 playoff appearances in 14 seasons in Seattle — delivering the franchise's first Super Bowl in 2014. Before that, he amassed a 97-19 record, back-to-back national championships, four Rose Bowls and three Heisman Trophy winners in a nine-season sprint at USC. Before that, he went 27-21, with two playoff trips, in three seasons leading the New England Patriots. He owns just four losing seasons in 27 years as a head coach — a winning machine in Air Monarchs, a bastion of belief.

"Coach Carroll, man, is a special human being. He's a believer," Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith said last month. "He's a guy who's always going to be upbeat. He's always going to fight. He has one way about him, and that's what I love about him.

"I think we're very much the same in that way. We just believe in ourselves and go. I think coach Carroll, he can help out any team. He can help out anybody."

But you already know his bona fides.

So, why haven't you hired him yet?

Ah, yes. The elephant. The number next to his name. As Carroll acknowledged when he stepped away a year ago, "I'm about as old as you can get in this business." The 73-year-old from San Francisco was in his third season as the Minnesota Vikings' defensive backs coach when Mike Macdonald was born. If hired, he would be the oldest coach in NFL history.

That fact isn't likely to sell fans of your underperforming franchise, the ones who prefer innovative play design to everything else. In a copycat league, it's all too easy to market the up-and-coming coordinator who spent a year or two standing next to Andy Reid or Sean McVay.

Admittedly, teams travel that route for a reason — because McVay, Houston's DeMeco Ryans, Minnesota's Kevin O'Connell, Philadelphia's Nick Sirianni, Green Bay's Matt LaFleur, Cincinnati's Zac Taylor, Seattle's Mike Macdonald, Miami's Mike McDaniel, etc., have all had measures of success. Sometimes, the purported phenom becomes every bit of it.

But for every example above, there are cautionary tales — first-time head coaches who belly-flop back into the assistant pool. Like Antonio Pierce (Las Vegas), Jerod Mayo (New England), Matt Eberflus (Chicago) and Robert Saleh (New York Jets), first-time head coaches who were fired in 2024. Like Atlanta's Arthur Smith in 2023 and Denver's Nathaniel Hackett in 2022.

Carroll's credentials as an accomplished head coach stretch three decades deep. Doesn't that count for something? Is an age on a Wikipedia page a grave impediment?

"I'm frickin' jacked. I'm fired up," Carroll said last January, his hair the same white as his sneakers, on whatever lay ahead. "I'm not tired. I'm not worn down. You guys [his players] tried your best. You didn't wear me out."

Added Seahawks cornerback Devon Witherspoon in December, after Carroll interviewed with the Chicago Bears: "A lot of players are going to gravitate to him as soon as he gets there, if he does get that job. He knows how to make work not feel like work, so that's what makes it fun, playing for him."

Then and now, Carroll is a culture-builder — that coveted, clichéd moniker all coaches claim to be. He's a conductor, not a coordinator. There's a difference between the two.

"What's always been behind the culture is trying to help people find their best, one person at a time," Carroll said last year. "It works. It's real. You can feel it."

It worked in Seattle and Los Angeles.

And, more recently, in Detroit.

Doesn't Dan Campbell's culture-building master class feel familiar? In 2021, the former tight end sifted through the wreckage of a franchise that hadn't won a playoff game since 1991. After going 3-13-1 in 2021, Campbell is 36-15 in the three seasons since.

"Dan's the greatest leader I've been around and has cultivated this culture we have and our belief in each other pretty significantly," Lions quarterback Jared Goff said late last season.

Understandably, Campbell's coordinators — Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn — are two of the hottest names for current head-coach openings. But there's also something to be said for good-old-fashioned leadership — an ability to empower your assistants, manage relationships and lift a locker room. Though eccentric, Jim Harbaugh has won on every head coaching stop — from the University of San Diego, to Stanford, to the San Francisco 49ers, to Michigan. Most recently, he lifted the Los Angeles Chargers from 5-12 to 11-6 in 2024.

"He's the most powerful leader I've seen," Chargers safety Derwin James said of Harbaugh this summer.

Perhaps, the closest thing to Campbell isn't one of his coordinators. It's Carroll.

Don't get me wrong: scheme, scouting, development, fit — all of it matters. It's critical you pair Carroll with a competent general manager and coordinators who can expose opponents and maximize your personnel. And after he held the keys alongside John Schneider for 14 years in Seattle, Carroll — whose coordinator hires were often underwhelming — must be willing to adapt, evolve and compromise.

(Fans would also have to live with some foolish challenge flags.)

But success also depends on your perspective. Carroll's Seahawks tenure ended because 9-8 was no longer enough. In Chicago, the Bears have reached nine wins once in their last 12 seasons. The Raiders have turned in two nine-win seasons in the last 22 years.

Carroll — who reportedly has or will interview with the Bears and Raiders — would bring a string of consistent competence those teams have rarely touched in the 21st century. In either case, he'd also bring a recipe for reconstructing culture to a notoriously dysfunctional franchise.

"The chance of being in one of those parades," Carroll said last year, when asked what he'd miss most about coaching. "The thrill of a lifetime was being in that [Super Bowl] parade, for our fans and the people and all that. I don't know what's going to happen next. I'm not sure about that. But that pursuit, to the greatness of the moment, that you celebrate with everybody, ain't nothing like it. So, it's worth fighting for."

So, that's the case for Carroll.

Though, Witherspoon said it more succinctly.

When asked last month if Carroll could still be a successful coach, the second-year cornerback shot back a bewildered look.

"Duh," he said. "It's Pete Carroll."

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