Throughout the previous 14 seasons, there have been moments when the rivalry between the 49ers and Seattle Seahawks was the best in football.
There were other extended spans when the Seahawks were completely in control.
In their most recent meeting, the 49ers have won five straight games against the opposition.
The coach wearing white sneakers and chewing gum on the Seahawks sideline was the main reason those games always had more significance and intrigue, regardless of what else was going on with the 49ers.
In the future, things will seem and feel very different without the spiffy 72-year-old Pete Carroll on the Seattle sidelines.
Carroll was fired by the Seahawks on Wednesday, according to a statement made by team chair Jody Allen. Rather than characterizing Carroll’s status as fired, Allen stated that Carroll will “evolve” into the intentionally ambiguous position of advisor.
What Carroll helped build while he was a member of the Seahawks will influence the team’s future. Under Carroll’s leadership, Seattle made ten postseason appearances and won its lone Super Bowl championship.
Carroll made the NFC West’s teams step up their game to stay competitive.
And in many ways, Carroll’s skillful collaboration with general manager John Schneider is what brought the 49ers to their current favorable situation.
The 49ers, who abruptly fired Steve Mariucci, were a franchise notorious for their dysfunction, having gone through several coaches in quick succession. Mariucci lost his job despite having a 22-10 record in 2001 and 2002. The 49ers failed to make it to the NFL postseason in any of the following eight seasons.
When the 49ers hired Jim Harbaugh in 2011 after he left Stanford, they quickly rose back to prominence in the country. But there was a rift between Harbaugh and general manager Trent Baalke at the time. In the end, Harbaugh was ignored, and more gloomy times and ineptitude ensued.
Carroll was a 49ers fan growing up in Marin County. In the middle of the 1990s, he even worked for George Seifert for two seasons as defensive coordinator. But after turning into one of the 49ers’ biggest rivals, Carroll may have unintentionally done more to improve the team’s long-term health.
Following the brief stints as head coach of the 49ers under Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly, 49ers CEO Jed York came up with a plan to rebuild the team.
He concluded that the 49ers ought to try to emulate the Seattle model. Finding a general manager and head coach who got along as well as Carroll and Schneider was the top priority.
And with general manager John Lynch and coach Kyle Shanahan, that is precisely what they discovered.
The two players at the top of the football hierarchy have been the focal points of the 49ers’ emphasis on creating a winning culture. Schneider and Carroll established the norm.
Within the first three seasons of Shanahan and Lynch’s tenure, the 49ers went from having the worst roster in the NFL and a leaderless organization to winning the Super Bowl.
Inside the locker room, there was broad approval when the 49ers announced in September that both men’s contracts had been extended for multiple years.
“Those two work very well together,” 49ers All-Pro tackle Trent Williams said of Shanahan and Lynch. “Who deserves an extension more than those two? You’d be hard-pressed to find somebody.”
The 49ers were able to duplicate the Seahawks’ winning formula. They have advanced to at least the NFC Championship game in three of the last four seasons, and they are the top seed in the NFC going into the playoffs.
In the meantime, the Seahawks have made the decision to let go of the player most accountable for the finest run in the team’s history.
The 49ers-Seahawks rivalry may never be the same as a result.