Larry Stone: How Pete Carroll kept the Seahawks afloat, set them sailing on another playoff run

Seahawks fans are basking in the glow of a transcendent Russell Wilson, a resurgent offense, and a defense that Sunday looked as intimidating and havoc-wreaking as it once did.

But they should save a few kudos for the 64-year-old architect of this renaissance. Yeah, Pete Carroll is only 64, not nearly as ancient as Earl Thomas humorously pondered last week, when he said of his coach, “He’s old. He’s been around this game for a long time. He might be about 80 years old, 70. He understands football.”

Carroll is 64 going on 54, and still going on a supply of pure energy that never seems to dwindle. He understands football enough to know that a 2-4 record and a series of gut-wrenching losses did not have to be the death knell of Seattle’s season.

Carroll was not alone in that assessment – or so we hear, now that they’re winning again – but the realm of true Seahawks believers was at a low ebb. Carroll’s knew his prime task was to ensure that any creeping doubt didn’t infiltrate the locker room. He conjured up every trick he had learned during 45 years in the business to make it so.

What has happened to the Seahawks since that stumbling start – a stunning return to form – ensures that this could be the best coaching job of Carroll’s NFL career. I say “could” because if the Seahawks stumble now and miss the playoffs, well, all bets are off.

But right now, the Seahawks’ mojo is back, as Wilson said Sunday. You can almost see the Seattle swagger returning with each game. They are the team that no one wants to face in the postseason, even if they’ll most likely be taking the wild-card path.

Carroll has an incredible knack for getting the Seahawks to peak at the right time. They are now 13-2 in December since Russell Wilson became quarterback in 2012. Since 2011, the second year of the Carroll regime, they are 22-18 in the first half of the season, a fairly pedestrian .550 winning percentage. In the second half, however, they are winning at a .778 clip (28-8), riding that momentum to two straight Super Bowl appearances and one victory.

This year might have been his greatest challenge. First of all, Carroll had to navigate the fallout from the bitter end to last year’s Super Bowl, when victory was stripped away in the most agonizing fashion possible. And by virtue of a play call that he approved and the vast majority questioned, including some, no doubt, in the Seattle locker room

Then he had to deal with all the brushfires that come with the notoriety that the Seahawks have attained, not the least of which was a bunch of players wanting to get paid. Not all of them got what they wanted, most notably Michael Bennett, who reported to camp anyway, and Kam Chancellor, who held out for the first two games of the season – both losses.

Carroll had to keep the team together after a series of excruciating losses – games they had a chance to win in the fourth quarter against St. Louis, Green Bay, Cincinnati, Carolina and Arizona. The weight of those defeats would have crushed many teams, but the Seahawks appear to have emerged on the other side stronger than ever, despite the loss of two core players, Marshawn Lynch and Jimmy Graham.

This Seahawks team is not as supremely talented as its two predecessors. The attrition of talent in the salary-cap NFL is relentless and unforgiving. Just look at all the former Seattle reserves that are now playing prominent roles around the league, and you can see how their depth has withered.

But also look at an undrafted free agent like Thomas Rawls emerging as a star in Lynch’s absence, and rookies like Tyler Lockett and Frank Clark that are playing an increasingly prominent role. Carroll is making the pieces fit at the right time.

Carroll and his staff have revamped the offense to compensate for an offensive line that early in the season looked to be the Seahawks’ undoing. Now a quicker passing attack is working wonders, and the line is jelling into a cohesive unit. Wilson has never looked better, and he and Doug Baldwin have become one of the best tandems in the league.

The supposed downfall of the Legion of Boom appears to have been greatly exaggerated as well. While the defense was torched for an unseemly 538 yards by Pittsburgh (480 through the air), they now have five interceptions in the past two weeks. They could fatten those totals in the next two weeks against the likes of Baltimore’s Matt Schaub (or Jimmy Clausen) and Cleveland’s Johnny Manziel.

Carroll remains the hippest 64-year-old in town. The night before Sunday’s game, he showed the Seahawks a film that interspersed collegiate highlights of many players with the greatest hits from their Seattle days. By all accounts, it was met with much merriment and served to fire up the squad prior to their 38-7 romp over the Vikings.

Such touches are what have always made Carroll unique. It’s hard to fathom in the violent world of the NFL, but he tries to make football fun. Carroll has never won a Coach of the Year award in the NFL, but his coaching job this year is shaping up as one for the books.