He has two years remaining on his contract. In two seasons, he will be at a career crossroads. That is one of the only decisions Allen will weigh in for: At age 68, will Carroll be worthy by the end of the 2019 season for another contract to continue what up to know has been the most sustained run of championship-level success the Seahawks have ever known? Will Carroll indeed fulfill what he told me in the summer of 2014, in the middle of the back-to-back Super Bowls, was his desire: to coach 10 more years, through age 72? Or does he want to spend more than just the limited football offseason weeks at his part-time home Haleiwa, on Oahu’s north shore in Hawaii?
Or will Allen decide, with Schneider having two years left at least in Seattle, that Carroll’s magic has run its course, that’s it’s time for a new era? By then, the roster of core Seahawks that got to those Super Bowls in the 2013 and ‘14 seasons--Russell Wilson, Richard Sherman, K.J. Wright, Doug Baldwin, Earl Thomas, Kam Chancellor--will all be over 30 years old, or gone from the team if not the league, or both.