SEATTLE -- With speculation raised anew that he may retire, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll reiterated Monday that he intends to return in 2024 for what will be his 15th season in Seattle.
"I plan to be coaching this team," Carroll said on his Seattle Sports 710 AM radio show a day after the Seahawks' season ended with a win over the Arizona Cardinals, but no playoff berth. "I told you that I love these guys and that's what I would like to be doing and see how far I can go. I'm not worn out. I'm not tired. I'm not any of that stuff. I need to do a better job and I need to help my coaches more and we need to do a better job of coaching, and there's a lot of area for improvement."
At 72, Carroll has been the NFL's oldest head coach for several years, leading to annual speculation about when he may call it a career. The extension he signed in 2020 runs through the 2025 season.
The Seahawks beat Arizona to finish 9-8 but also needed a Green Bay Packers loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday to earn the NFC's seventh seed. This marks the fourth time in 14 seasons under Carroll -- and second time in the last three years -- that Seattle has missed the playoffs.
Asked postgame if this season makes him want to return in 2024, Carroll said, "Yeah ... of course I'd love to do that."
Asked if he expects to be back, Carroll said, "I do. I do. At this point, I do, yeah."
The Seahawks had the 30th-ranked defense and 21st-ranked offense in 2023. On his radio show, Carroll hinted that changes could be in the offing.
"This time of year comes around and this is the time when the real focused planning begins," he said. "There's planning that's been going on. There's discussions and conversations that go on about how you're going to go on, how the future is going to be and what's coming. [General manager John Schneider] and I are always talking about that stuff forever. But this is when the real business starts to take place, and there's things that have to be done and decisions have to be made, choices and all kinds of stuff. That's what this time of the year is, and we'll see how we go."