Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll didn't relish his team's Super Bowl victory for too long, already looking ahead to next season just one day after his team defeated the Denver Broncos 43-8 in Super Bowl XLVIII at MetLife Stadium, saying Monday that his team would be surprised if he didn't start speaking about next season during the first team meeting since winning it all.
"The first meeting that we'll have will be [Tuesday]. ... Our guys would be surprised if we didn't," Carroll said Monday morning about whether or not he'd discuss looking ahead with the team, according to ESPN. "We really have an eye on what's coming, and we don't dwell on what just happened. We'll take this in stride."
According to ESPN, Carroll appeared at a press conference Monday at the Manhattan Hotel with linebacker and Super Bowl MVP Malcolm Smith, who is just 24 and became the fourth-youngest player to win Super Bowl MVP honors. ESPN reports that the average team age for the Seahawks is 26 years, 175 days, making it the fourth-youngest roster to win a Super Bowl title.
Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson won the NFL's grandest prize in just his second season in the league, and Carroll knows that he may need to keep his young team focused on the future.
Smith, who became the third linebacker to ever earn Super Bowl MVP honors after a 69-yard interception return off of regular-season MVP Peyton Manning in the first half and a fumble recovery in the second half, said he understands how much effort it took to get to the Super Bowl.
"We've seen the effort that it takes to get to this point, and obviously we'll try to replicate that and do it again," Smith said per ESPN. "We're looking forward to the next challenges and guys having a target on their back and people trying to come after us."
Smith said at the press conference that some of his teammates were telling him he might earn the MVP honors but he said, "No way, no way, not me."
Carroll praised general manager John Schneider for putting together a strong team that will mostly remain under contract following the championship win.
"John Schneider has done an extraordinary job of structuring this roster contractually and with the vision of looking ahead so that we can keep our guys together," Carroll said. via ESPN "One of the things that happens every so often is teams have a big fallout after they win the Super Bowl. We're not in that situation."
Carroll then spoke of the snow that blasted the New York New Jersey area just one day after a pleasant Super Bowl.
"I don't know how [NFL commissioner Roger Goodell] pulled it off, but he pulled off the weather in perfect fashion," Carroll joked, according to ESPN. "The NFL is powerful."
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