Willie McGinest says some Patriots players took advantage of Pete Carroll
Pete Carroll’s three-year tenure as the Patriots’ head coach isn’t remembered particularly fondly. But according to one former Patriots veteran, the team’s underwhelming performance wasn’t all Carroll’s fault.
In an interview Wednesday on The Bill Simmons Podcast, longtime Patriots linebacker Willie McGinest said Carroll brought a completely different type of culture and coaching style than his predecessor, Bill Parcels.
“He had more energy, to say the least, or more of a happy, rah-rah-type attitude,” he said. “His coaching style was different. The way he talked and the way he approached things was totally different. He didn’t rule with an iron fist.”
The different styles, however, led to some players taking advantage of the freedom Carroll allowed them, according to McGinest.
“Some guys took advantage of the way Pete was, and they didn’t respect it and they didn’t do what they needed to do,” he said.
Simmons mentioned the infamous time during the 1997 season that quarterbacks Drew Bledsoe and Scott Zolak and offensive tackle Max Lane stage-dived at a mid-week Everclear concert at Boston’s Paradise Club, badly injuring a woman in the crowd.
“They were rocking on, man,” McGinest said, laughing. He added that “guys do that all the time” and that the Boston media tends to hyper-focus on negative events.
According to McGinest, there were a lot of positives during the Carroll era. In three years, the coach had a 27-21 record with two playoff appearances. He was fired and replaced by Bill Belichick after the 1999 season, in which the team lost six of its last eight games, finishing 8-8 and missing the playoffs.
McGinest told Simmons that he became an avid advocate for Carroll afterwards.
“He was still a really good coach,” he said.
McGinest agreed that Carroll got a “raw deal” with the Patriots.
“It was proven when he went to my alma mater,” he said, referring to Caroll’s coaching career at USC.
In fact, McGinest said he pushed the school to hire Carroll after he had been dumped by the Patriots.
“I was one of his biggest supporters. I was alumni. I was telling Mike Garrett at the time, who was the athletic director — Pete was probably his fifth of sixth choice, but he was like my No. 1 — I was like, ‘This guy has the energy for college football. This guy will get these players to play at a certain level. He will bring SC back.'”
The school’s eventual decision to hire Carroll was lambasted at the time by the media. Within four years, Carroll’s teams had won two national championships. He would later return to the NFL to win one Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks — as well as one for the Patriots.
