by Kyle K. Mann
Gonzo Today Publisher and Contributing Editor
(This will be a last blast before our Gonzo Today Relaunch next month, featuring a wealth of new articles. Thanks everyone for your readership!)
OK, I had hoped Pete Carroll would be fired as Head Coach of the Vegas Raiders by now, but there he is, still at the helm of the sinking ship, sporting a 2-9 record here in late November.
2 and 9! Writing a disrespectful article about my childhood enemy is like shooting fish in a gawdamn barrel.
Too easy a target, really. Like Trump. Or any Democrats. Or corrupt Zelensky and nasty Putin, both killing countless numbers of people. Or Dick Cheney, now dead but whose memory I revile.
Here’s the short version: Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl over a decade ago. He choked on the goal line the next Super Bowl against the Patriots (who had fired him previously) in one of the stupidest moments in human sports history. Since then, Carroll has been trying to erase that horrid memory by winning a second NFL Championship.
No go. He’s an epic failure.
*****
Back in 1983 I moved to Santa Monica, CA, and took some radio classes with good ol’ Bill Furnell at Santa Monica College. I wound up covering the Los Angeles Raiders for KFOX, traveling on the team plane on road games, the whole bit. They won the Super Bowl that season, their third time as champs. It’s a long story, one that launched my magical decade in radio doing sports, news and deejay work. Those mid 80s years are one of many reasons I used to love the Raiders. They were my launching pad in the 80’s.
That 1984 Super Bowl win would be the Raiders’ last. Since then they have failed to win a fourth one. Like Pete Carroll, they are Jonesing to win again.
I’d argue the reason they won’t, and can’t, is Bad Karma.
I find it unfortunate that all karma isn’t instant. Dick Cheney enjoyed a long life and had a magnificent funeral, attended by the rich and powerful. A disgusting spectacle, it was. Hard to contemplate it without feeling gut-twisting revulsion.
Now, is it fair to compare a mass murderer to a flailing sports coach? My contention is that it certainly is, because of the deep Bad Karma both have. I tarnish my own karma even writing about it.
So be it. Pete couldn’t win again in Seattle, never able to make up for the SuperChoke. Sure he had some winning seasons, but repeatedly failed in the playoffs. Along the way, he hired his sons as assistant coaches, and has installed them as assistants on the Raiders as well.
I’d call that blatant nepotism, which works if you succeed but smells mighty bad if you don’t. One of his sons is the Raiders Offensive Line Coach. Guess who has one of the worst O-lines in professional football?
After a string of dreadful losses, the Raiders fired their Offensive Coordinator, Chip Kelly. He had been the highest paid OC in the NFL, brought in with great fanfare to restore the Raiders’ ability to move the ball, and fired after just 11 games on Sunday, November 23, 2025 after a ghastly Raiders loss to the Cleveland Browns that included 10 quarterback sacks of the Raiders. Now Kelly is just a patsy, like Lee Harvey Oswald.
Then there’s Raiders Quarterback Gino Smith, also paid big money to produce touchdowns. After a “Blame Gino” press conference outburst too stupid to delineate, he unwisely flipped off Raiders’ fans. Flipped off the Raiders fans! As the late great Raiders play by play announcer Bill King would have said, Holy Toledo.
Carroll has not benched Smith. Bad non-call! I’d say both their days are numbered. These two make millions to drag the once-proud Raider brand through the mud.
The ultimate responsibility, of course, lies with owner Mark Davis, who has in numerous ways proven himself unworthy of his father’s legacy. Al Davis didn’t exactly have Good Karma himself, but at least he was effective with his 3 Championships.
Somewhere in this mix is part-owner and legend Tom Brady, whose investment in the Raiders is looking dubious at best.
Now the Raiders are a laughing stock, a clown show of a team. And for Pete Carroll, now the oldest head coach in NFL history, the question becomes, are we at rock bottom yet?
*****
I never played tackle football. Call it cowardice, but I had too much respect for my body to let strangers repeatedly hit me and throw me to the ground. I do have a perplexed admiration for people crazy enough to play a game likely to result in injury including permanent paralysis, like what happened to Darryl Stingley. Stingley, age 26, was a wide receiver for the New England Patriots who was rendered a quadriplegic on a savage spine-shattering hit by Raider Jack Tatum.
And yes, people get killed playing tackle football. We really are the Roman Empire, aren’t we?
All that said, I’m rooting for the San Francisco 49ers to do what the Raiders couldn’t do last Sunday: beat the Cleveland Browns. Gonna be quite a game, with weather a factor: near freezing temperatures, rain, maybe snow… wow. The surprisingly effective rookie defensive line, the ongoing saga of QB Brock Purdy, the stellar play of Christian McCaffrey and George Kittle, and the excellent coaching of Kyle Shanahan and Defensive Coordinator Robert Salah: very cool. Niners can firm up their playoff seeding if they win. This might be the year the get that elusive 6th Super Bowl win.
So yeah, see how that works? It’s a love/hate relationship many of us have with American football.
Nothing will stop the spectacle this Sunday. Trump declares war on Venezuela? Russia breaks through the lines and captures Kiev and Odessa? A UFO lands in front of the United Nations building?
Play ball. Even the hapless Raiders, in what is most likely Pete Carroll’s Last Stand.
Kyle K. Mann
Portland, OR
November 29, 2025
