Raiders 2025: Actions will speak louder than words for John Spytek, Pete Carroll

Las Vegas general manager, head coach can command a room, but we’ll see soon enough if that translates to more wins

John Spytek and Pete Carroll can certainly command a room.

With individual media availability sessions at the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, the Las Vegas Raiders general manager and head coach, respectively, answered questions at the podium on Tuesday.

The inquiries ran the full gamut of topics from general to specific, as per usual, with Spytek expertly side stepping the team’s biggest need to Carroll reiterating the intended goal of winning right away.

The virtuosity both Raiders’ decision makers at the podium was nothing short of impressive.

Garnering best team vibes honors is one thing. Generating much-needed wins is another thing.

And we’ll find out soon enough if Spytek and Carroll can surmount that mountainous task of turning the Silver & Black from perpetual losers to winners. To hear Carroll tell it though, he and Spytek will be joined at the hip in the quest to improve the Raiders. Together they will succeed or fail.

“The relationship between the head coach and the general manager, to me, is the most important relationship in the NFL,” Carroll noted. “And it was when John Schneider and I started 14-15 years ago now. And so, I really treasure this relationship and I’m going to make it as good as possible.”

Before that response above, Carroll spoke on Spytek’s already-established relationship with Raiders minority owner Tom Brady. And the head coach said the synergy between the three became apparent after huddling together to talk the team’s future.

“The time I’ve had with John, and really it connects with Tom as well, because Tom and John are very well connected. To feel the continuity of our competitiveness and our approach and outlook and how we want to picture this thing coming together, it’s just as solid as it could possibly be,” Carroll said. “And I couldn’t be more fired up about it, because when Tom talks and when John talks and when I talk, we’re talking the same language. It’s been a seamless start to this thing. And so I didn’t know, I didn’t know that till we started hanging out.”

Certainly a contributing factor to the Raiders’ futility — only five winning seasons in the last 25 years — is the lack of the same language. So that in itself is encouraging. But I can certainly appreciate the skepticism that exists in Raider Nation. The fan base has long been on the suffering end of not seeing a consistent winner as the 2000, 2001, 2002 seasons were the last set of back-to-back-to-back years where the team went 12-4, 10-6, and 11-5. It took 14 seasons to get to 12-4 (2016) and five more to get to 10-7 (2021), so the cynicism amongst the fan bas is warranted.

Hence: Actions will speak louder than words for Spytek and Carroll.

Off & Running

Long before Spytek fielded questions at the combine, the Raiders GM stressed the team keeping their own and not letting good players leave the building.

We finally saw action behind those words as Las Vegas kept young safety Isaiah Pola-Mao in the fold with contact extension on Monday.

That was the first in-house free agent (Pola-Mao was a restricted free agent due to his undrafted status) the team tackled and there are many more.

“Yeah, we don’t want to let any good players walk out of our building, especially young players,” Spytek reiterated when asked about the contract extension. “And Isaiah was a guy that given an opportunity last year when Marcus (Epps) got hurt, really stepped up and played well. And I think you’ve got to give a lot of respect to a young kid that’s undrafted and has a chance to get thrust in the starting lineup, and next thing you know, he’s playing at a good level.

“And we noticed it in Tampa, and talking to the coaches, PG (defensive coordinator Patrick Graham) that was here, thought he was critical. I spent some time talking to a couple of the other players in the locker room, and they had a lot of really positive things to say about him. And I think for Isaiah and for the Raiders, it made a lot of sense to do this deal, and hopefully this is just a starting point for him?”

We’ll see in due time how Las Vegas decides on the rest of the in-house free agents — which include key contributors like middle linebacker Robert Spillane, safety Tre’Von Moehrig, and cornerback Nate Hobbs, to name a few — potentially extending pass rusher Maxx Crosby, and landing a quarterback who can vie for the starting gig.

Finding a starting quarterback and surrounding them with quality pieces is something both Spytek and Carroll stressed and we’ll find out in the next few months if the duo can do just that.

But Pola-Mao is a good initial step to the roster building Spytek, Carroll, and Co. are doing.

Tape Doesn’t Lie

From scouting current NFL players and prospects in the upcoming 2025 NFL Draft, Spytek made it clear the team is always going to to go back to film from a football standpoint.

But that isn’t relegated to roster building.

That philosophy is going to be very much part of the Silver & Black identity overall going forward, too.

“I think we want to set the tone with our film. When people watch a week or two out for our games coming, like they want to know like this is going to be a battle, this is going to be physical, this is going to be old school football, and are we made for this?,” Spytek noted.

Point After: Spytek and Carroll spent time making the media rounds beyond their slotted media availability. Check out this sit-down the Raiders GM did with Gregg Rosenthal where he expands on his relationship with Tom Brady and Crosby’s future with the team. Carroll, meanwhile, had a conversation with NBC’s Mike Florio and Chris Simms where he talks the challenge of leading the Raiders and Crosby, too.