When Pete Carroll came back from retirement to lead the Las Vegas Raiders, he promised wins. Instead, he’s now coaching the worst season of his career. At 2-8, the Raiders are drowning. But it’s not just about losing. It’s how they’re losing that could have the head coach on the chopping block.

Analyst Moe Moton recently called out what everyone’s noticing. The coaching staff has been deflecting blame onto players instead of addressing the problems. “Reeds of a 1-and-done staff,” Moton said, pointing to two glaring examples that expose a dysfunctional operation putting players in impossible positions.

Tight end Brock Bowers suffered a PCL injury and a bone bruise in Week 1 against the New England Patriots. But instead of shutting him down, the team let their All-Pro tight end play through Weeks 2-4, clearly hobbled, catching just 14 passes for 122 yards with a career-low 8.7 yards per catch.

“Last month, the Raiders (likely coaches) basically put the blame on the player (Brock Bowers) for playing through an injury. When he should’ve been resting,” writes Moe Moton.

But player health is a coaching responsibility, not a player choice. As Moton sees it, the Raiders essentially scapegoated their best offensive weapon for their own failure to protect him. Without Bowers, the offense cratered until he came back in Week 9. But the miscue with Bowers is just one part of the problem.

Monday Night Football was a whole different disaster for the Raiders. The Dallas Cowboys demolished them 33-16, and another player took the fall. With right guard Jackson Powers-Johnson hitting the injury reserve, the next man up was the veteran Alex Cappa. But many thought rookie guard Caleb Rogers could get a shot now. Instead, the coaches shuffled the line entirely.

Backup left guard Will Putnam became the center, and Jordan Meredith became the right guard. Maybe there was a plan behind it, but when Pete Carroll tried to explain it, it didn’t sound very solid.

“The competition during the time this week and what’s been happening the last two weeks, we’ve been looking at it,” the head coach said. “We tried Caleb … and we looked at some different combinations, and this was the best way we thought to do it.”

But Moton wasn’t buying this. “A rumor circulates AFTER an abysmal MNF showing from their OL that Caleb Rogers was terrible at practice,” he wrote.

The reshuffled line got destroyed in Week 11. Dallas sacked Raiders quarterback Geno Smith four times and hit him on 11 plays. The run game? A mere 27 yards on 2.3 yards per carry. Moton drove the point home: “This coaching regime’s attempts at damage control are easy to see through.”

But all of these incidents are symptoms of a bigger collapse. Even if the player mismanagement is left aside, another big reason for Pete Carroll to be on the hot seat right now is his 2025 season. The Raiders have been a train wreck from start to finish, most recently on display in the Cowboys beatdown.

Pete Carroll’s nightmarish season continues

The Dallas Cowboys went into victory formation before the two-minute warning. Let that sink in. The Cowboys were so dominant they took five intentional 1-yard losses just to burn clock while the Raiders refused to call timeout. When Las Vegas got the ball back with 36 seconds left, Geno Smith took a knee. They’d quit. Completely.

“We just got to stay together and keep fighting,” Brock Bowers said after the game. “We have dudes here that play good football, and feel like sometimes it’s not reflected on the field.”

Sounds like a player who knows the staff has lost the locker room already with a season going nowhere.

What’s even more surprising is that this is Pete Carroll’s worst season ever. The legendary coach who won a Super Bowl and never finished below six wins is staring at a potential 2-15 disaster. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler thinks Carroll might be one-and-done, noting he only got a three-year contract, shorter than most new coaches receive.

“Carroll is a name to monitor because the Raiders are clearly in rebuilding mode from a roster/talent standpoint,” Fowler noted. “At 74, he is in it to win now and to prove that he’s capable of turning around an organization. Those plans aren’t meshing.”

“I don’t necessarily see him walking away, though he’s clearly not getting what he signed up for in January,” Fowler further explained. “So, a question of whether the Raiders should reset and continue the rebuild with another coach is worth asking.”

The Raiders offense ranks 30th per FOX rankings. They’ve lost four straight and remain at the bottom of the AFC West, struggling to find relevance. All the while, Pete Carroll is presiding over a staff that scapegoats players instead of building accountability. Can they fix it? And if not, how long before Coach Carroll faces the end of the line?