For a decade in Seattle, Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson came together to make up one of the most successful quarterback/head coach combinations in the NFL. In ten years, Carroll and Wilson won over 65 percent of their regular season games, led the Seahawks to nine winning seasons, four division titles, and one Super Bowl championship. In that time, Wilson made nine Pro Bowls, threw for over 37,000 yards, and had a bonkers 292-to-87 touchdown to interception ratio.
And then, seemingly in the blink of an eye, the relationship had deteriorated. Of course, things like that don’t actually happen in the blink of an eye. Over the course of a decade of working alongside one another, there were surely hundreds of mini-moments that contributed to the disintegration of the relationship between Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson. And when the boiling point was reached, Wilson was traded to the Denver Broncos.
Now, after two years apart, it seems as if the fracture between the former coach and quarterback has healed. Over the weekend, Russell Wilson revealed that he recently went back to Seattle to spend time with and celebrate his former coach who has now stepped into a front office role in Seattle.
“We’ve always had a good relationship. He was like a father figure to me,” Wilson said Sunday on I AM ATHLETE, per Julia Stumbaugh of Bleacher Report. “To me, going back to see Pete was because of the love that was there. I got no hate in my heart. Just love. Just love in my heart.”
Whether or not the tension between Wilson and Carroll had been fabricated and exaggerated at all, it’s good to see that a duo that in many ways defined the 2010’s NFL has reconciled and is back on good terms moving forward.
“Just wanted to celebrate him, because I thought that he gave me so much,” Wilson said. “In the midst of everybody talking all this noise about me and Pete, we’ve always and forever been connected.”
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