Is Pete Carroll trolling Seahawks fans with tweet about “Mack”?

Is Pete Carroll trolling Seahawks fans with tweet about “Mack”?
Video earl thomas khalil mack

Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll might be one of the most social media savvy members of the over-65 club, and he’s gotten a reputation for teasing fans with hints about pre-draft moves with song references. So what exactly was Carroll meaning to do on Tuesday with his #SOTD (song of the day) choice, “Return of the Mack” by Mark Morrison?

Speculation immediately ran rampant that Carroll was hinting at a move for disgruntled Oakland Raiders pass rusher Khalil Mack, currently holding out and expected to miss regular season games until he receives a new contract extension that gives him financial security beyond 2018, likely upwards of $20 million+ annually. Mack has been involved in trade rumors all month, mostly circulating around the Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, and Green Bay Packers.

Could the Seahawks be involved?

We know that John Schneider has always preached that he wants Seattle in on “every” trade rumor at some level, if it’s just an inquiry to the cost and then a quick “no thank you.” We also know that Seattle has their own holdout situation with Earl Thomas, and the Raiders could actually benefit from a significant upgrade at free safety; I just don’t know how much Oakland is willing to commit to a safety if they aren’t willing to commit long-term to a 27-year-old pass rusher.

But more important than that, is Carroll’s tweet significant at all?

The easy answer is “No, of course not.” Let’s speculate anyway.

Carroll’s last song tweet was August 16, an ode to the recently-passed Aretha Franklin. His most recent #SOTD tweet was all the way back on January 15, a tribute to Martin Luther King.

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And you have to go back almost a full year for his most recent one before that, a shoutout to “Lean On Me” and Jimmy Fallon for seemingly no reason at all besides he liked it. So, Carroll actually doesn’t #SOTD very often and this one seemed to come out from left field, a 1996 R&B hit from a British singer with no other U.S. hits to his name. “Return of the Mack” went as high as number 2 in America, only failing to unseat Hanson’s MMMBop from the top spot.

Is Carroll saying that Khalil Mack will join Frank Clark and Dion Jordan to form “The Region of MMMBop”? The song also samples “Genius of Love” from The Tom Tom Club. Is Carroll suggesting that the Seahawks will actually trade Earl to Oakland for Mack and Tom Tom Cable?

Is the tweet in fact this meaningless:

If Carroll tweeted out “Return of the Mack” for absolutely no reason at all, then he just accidentally trolled Seattle for no better reason than why so many people troll FieldGulls and others. Given his infrequency of actually tweeting out music, and this is a 22-year-old song with no cultural relevance specific to a known event today, I highly doubt it was an accident.

That doesn’t mean it was meaningful. I’m not sure how many of his pre-draft hints are meaningful either.