Pete Carroll Already Feels The (Possibly Excessive) Love In Seattle

It’s widely known that new Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll brings an enthusiastic, upbeat style not just to football, but pretty much everything he does. So when the team hired John Schneider away from a position with the Green Bay Packers to be Seattle’s new general manager (working extremely closely with Carroll), and Schneider displayed an excitable, Carroll-friendly personality, it only made sense that the coach’s notorious energy level would kick into an even higher gear. Based on Schneider’s introductory press conference, that happened and a little something more – causing Seattle-based reporters to take notice in strikingly similar ways.

Let’s start with Jerry Brewer of the Seattle Times, whose article on the subject is titled, “Fantastic collaboration? No, the Seahawks created a budding bromance.” Brewer clearly spotted a spark between Carroll and Schneider:

Expect them to take trips together (and not just to Mobile, Ala., for the Senior Bowl), give each other nicknames (prediction: PC and The Schneid) and wear matching clothes (even when their threads don’t have the Seahawks logo).

He went on to deem the Carroll/Schneider dynamic a “man crush,” and as beaten into the ground as both that term and “bromance” are, it’s hard to argue with Brewer’s characterization when Carroll, in describing his first meeting with Schneider, actually said:

“Something special happened between John and I.”

Yes, it certainly seems like this partnership is off to an auspicious start. Art Thiel at Seattle’s other print newspaper, the Post-Intelligencer (HA! Just kidding! The P-I is online-only now! Two print newspapers in one city, that’s rich!), concurred:

The bromance seemed to stop a little south of Brokeback Mountain, but the principals left little doubt about the professional connection between the two.

There’s that “bromance” word again – in both Seattle papers! Now, clearly, Carroll and Schneider share similar worldviews, which may well lead to a fruitful partnership. But surely Brewer and Thiel are taking things a bit far in their write-ups, no? After all, in watching Schneider’s press conference, despite the clear enthusiasm displayed by all parties, one mostly sees Schneider earnestly thanking his parents, as well as all the people he’s worked with who helped him advance professionally. Was this day really about a bromance? According to Thiel’s article:

“I was sweating like crazy,” [Schneider] said. “I was all jacked up. We started talking and I thought we were going to come across the table at each other a little bit there a couple of times. It was exciting.

“Pete and I, I felt like we could have stayed all night. I didn’t want to finish. I thought we could have kept going.”

Apparently…yes. This day was about a bromance. Well done, Art Thiel and Jerry Brewer.