After agreeing to a contract extension with the Seattle Seahawks earlier in the week, Pete Carroll, who will turn 65 early in the 2016 season, knew that news would come with an obvious question:
Is this latest contract the last contract for the man who is now the oldest head coach in the NFL?
"That's just the next stop along the way," Carroll said of his new contract. "I know you guys keep wanting to know, 'How long is he going to coach or whatever?' I've got no end to this, I don't see it. I'm just going for it. I'm going to go as long as it's fun and it's good and we're winning games and all of that.
"I don't feel any different than I've felt before. Matter of fact, I feel better. I'm under my playing weight, I'm in great shape, I'm ready to go… There aren't any last stops, just keep going."
Carroll even joked that he can offer hope to younger people worried about reaching an age most people associate with retirement.
"If this is what 65 gets you, I'm jacked up, I'm ready to go," he said. "I don't have any other thought about that. If you guys are worried about being 65, OK, look at me, it isn't that bad. I think it's pretty fun."
While Carroll is taking a light-hearted approach when it comes to his own future, he was serious about the importance of general manager John Schneider getting a contract extension done two days before his own deal was finalized.
"That was hugely important," Carroll said. "It was hugely important that we did that first. I don't want to do this without John, and I wanted to make sure there were no issues with that. So we saw that through first. It took a while to get that done, but it's extremely important. He's a tremendous partner, he's a great G.M., he's doing nothing but great stuff, that's all he has done. We needed to do this together. I knew I wasn't going anywhere, I wanted to make sure we couldn't get him out of here. We had to make sure we got that done."
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