SANTA CLARA – The Seattle Seahawks head coach, Pete Carroll, spoke on a conference call this afternoon with Bay Area reporters.
Here’s the complete transcript.
Q: When you look at what the 49ers were doing in the exhibition season do you see a lot of what Harbaugh did at Stanford as well?
CARROLL: Their attack was very basic in the preseason like everybody pretty much is. They’re a committed running football team without question. You can see that, they’ve done a nice job running the ball. In the passing game, there’s some similarities but they were so fundamental that it didn’t look the same but you can see that the roots are all there.
Q: What can you take from schemes that you saw when you faced Harbaugh at the college level?
CARROLL: When you’re in the division you get to know your opponent a little bit and you see them play other teams and you get familiar with them. There’s a different level of familiarity, and fortunately in both of our cases we’ve played against each other a few times, so there’s just some similarities, as opposed to a coach that you’ve never played against and you don’t have any background. It’s a little more like a divisional matchup where you have some background. That’s what it feels like.
Q: How would you characterize your relationship with Jim right now?
CARROLL: We don’t know each other very well. We’ve had some years playing against each other. I watched him play when he was playing in the league, and I coached against him a couple times when he was playing, and I’ve always had great respect for him as a tough guy and a competitor and all that good stuff. He did a marvelous job at Stanford to get them to the point they were last year. He obviously left them in a very good status as well – they looked great in the opener. He’s just a really good football coach that I have a lot of respect for, and I know he’s a great competitor.
Q: What was your first thought when you found out that he signed with the 49ers?
CARROLL: Great move for San Francisco. Being a native, it’s good for the fans and good for the people there and he’s going to do a nice job there.
Q: Jim told us to tune in, tune in to hear what you guys say when you meet at midfield…
CARROLL: That’s right, you better listen very carefully. I want to see a lot of boom mics when we’re talking out there. Get the straight scoop finally about what’s really up.
Q: Do you like him as a guy?
CARROLL: I don’t know him very well. I like him because I know he’s a great competitive guy and he’s tough and does all the kinds of things that good coaches do and good players do, and so I have a lot of respect for that.
Q: What’s Tom Cable brought to you right off the bat with your team?
CARROLL: He’s been a marvelous just in general. I love having him here to work with. He brings a great attitude. He brings expertise in the running game and on the offensive side of the ball. I feel great confidence with him dealing with all of the issues that we have to deal with, and being able to talk with him about stuff. It’s like having, which it is, another head coach on the staff, and he’s been through all of the decisions and the problems that we face and he’s a great communicator so he helps. It’s really good to have him around. It’s been a real joy so far.
Q: Has his job, and the job of all offensive line coaches, been complicated by the amount of time or lack-thereof that you’ve had to deal with these players?
CARROLL: Without question. Mike Solari’s facing the same thing. There’s so few opportunities going in and you just have no background with the guys, so it’s starting almost like an All-Star team when you’re starting up. It’s as challenging as it can get, and with a few young guys it makes it even more difficult, but it is what it is and we have to make the most of it. We’ve set out to do a great job of teaching and the process hopefully will pay off for us. We know that we will improve through the early parts of the season and continue to do that hopefully.
Q: When you prepare do you look at Stanford film from last year or 49er film from the summer?
CARROLL: We look at everything. We look at everything that we can get our hands on. These four games were really important to us, and in the past, sure, there’s background there that we have to check in on, and try to make some sense of it. We’re not going to know what they’ve decided to do, how they’re going to roll out their new offense and their defense and all that until they do it. We do have some background, sure.
Q: With that said, will adjustments be really key in this game?
CARROLL: Always. The first game, the first couple games it’s really important. As somebody starts to show their hand, what they do and what they think, then the ability to adjust is crucial, and hopefully you have what it takes in your background so that you can make the adjustments that are necessary. I think halftime will be a really big part of this game, and it is across the league. But it will be in this game for sure because they’re a brand new team.
Q: The Niners have a couple new guys in the secondary – Donte Whitner, Carlos Rogers, Tarell Brown may be starting. Can you give your impressions of them?
CARROLL: They kept a lot of guys in the secondary because they’ve got a lot of good players. They let go some guys that are really good players, too. It’s a talented group. The guys look similar, they all run well, they’ve got good size to them. Donte, for sure, is a big deal to have him with his experience and background and playmaking and all of that. Dashon is a really good football player, too. I don’t know if he’s available or not, but he’s a guy that makes things happen. It’s a good group and I thought that they played solidly on defense when the young guys came in too. They’re doing a really nice job with those guys. Eddy Donatell is doing a good job, as a matter of fact.
Q: Did Aldon Smith jump out at you on film?
CARROLL: Yeah, he made some things happen right off the bat. He has kind of a unique quality of working his way through the line of scrimmage. He’s kind of slippery and he’s got a quickness to him and a length to him that makes him difficult to deal with, and he shows stuff like that right off the bat in the early games.
Q: You’ve made the jump from college to pro. Jim is trying to make the jump. Have you studied that at all? What makes coaches successful in that jump?
CARROLL: If you’ve had NFL experience before you become a head football coach in the NFL it makes a big difference. Just the familiarity with the style and the banter and the language and the way the communication is, the way you handle the season and the teams, all that stuff. I think college coaches that have never had that experience when they come into the league, they’re into a whole new ballgame. But I don’t think it’s a big deal once you’ve been there. There’s a different kind of communication and language to it all, that if you’re unfamiliar with it you’ve got to figure it out, not that you can’t, but it helps if you have. Coming back this time around there was no transition to me at all. It was very simple to come back to the league and I didn’t have any problem with it and I think in the case with Jim, just being in the league for all those years playing, that all helps. If a guy hasn’t had that kind of background it can be kind of unsettling. It’s unfamiliar and your learning curve is going to take longer.
Q: You’re the defending NFC West champions, I’ll be it with not the greatest record last year. Who do you think should be the favorite this year?
CARROLL: Just the best record, that’s all. Not the greatest, just the best (laughs). No, I don’t know how anybody looks at that. We’re going out to go after this thing again. That’s the only thing we focus on. We think it’s really important to learn how to be champions and to learn how to be on top of your division and to own that, and so that’s something we go after every year, and we’ll see if we can do that again. It’s going to be a long haul. It’s a long battle. It’s a long, long time before we figure this thing out, and it all starts Sunday right here in the division with the Niners is San Francisco. It’s a great place to begin.
Q: You guys won the opener last year against San Francisco, do you think the fact that the Niners weren’t familiar with you last year gave you an advantage?
CARROLL: You’d have to ask those guys, I don’t know that.
Q: Let me ask you it a different way. Is it more difficult to game plan against a new coaching staff?
CARROLL: It can be, but I’ve been a head coach for nine years so you could take a look at what we did there. There’s a lot of similarities. And I think it’s the same case now, turning it around and looking at the Niners. Coming from Stanford, it’s the same coordinators, basically the same offensive and defensive coordinator so you’re going to see a lot of the same things. I don’t think it’s that unusual for us or that difficult to understand what they’re going to try to do. Now we need to see what it is and we’ll figure it out.
Q: Is there a greater stress on pass protection in this game because you’ve had a shorter time together?
CARROLL: I don’t think there’s any question. There is for us, I know that. We’re working hard at it.
Q: After the lockout, how has Tarvaris Jackson picked up on offense?
CARROLL: He had five years in the offense with Darrell Bevell in Minnesota, which was a big factor in why we saw great value in him. He carried that over. The language and the communications are the same. That really made him valuable to us. And even in the lockout season he wasn’t able to come in early, he jumped right at it and he didn’t have any problems. There was no learning curve for him, and that’s been obvious to our players around him. He’s been able to help guys with alignments and assignments and whatever, checks and things like that. He’s the expert out there. That’s probably part of the reason that they voted him as captain for us.
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