The last time a coach of a Super Bowl team faced the guy who replaced him with another team, Jon Gruden led the Buccaneers to an easy win over his former assistant Bill Callahan and the Raiders.
Pete Carroll probably wouldn’t mind the same result this time. The Seahawks coach will be matching wits with Bill Belichick in Glendale 15 years after Belichick was hired to replace Carroll as the coach of the Patriots. On Monday, Carroll was asked about facing a team he used to coach and said that he thought it was fun while not being too big a deal.
“It’s really fun. Who cares? But it’s really fun,” Carroll said on 710 ESPN in Seattle. “It’s a little bit personal because we were there and it’s a great place and I have great respect for what they have done, the family, what they have pulled off over the years. The Kraft family, they’ve done amazing things, historic things in the league and in the last 15 years or however long it’s been ... They’ve been the best of the best and they’ve proven it. So we’re fortunate to get a chance to get to play a team like this and a club like this.”
If the interval between Carroll’s departure and this game were shorter, the fact that Carroll once coached the Patriots would seem like a bigger deal. With NCAA and NFL titles under his belt since leaving, though, Carroll doesn’t have to convince anyone of his coaching bona fides at this point in his career any more than Belichick does.