Originally posted by Kaepmandu:
Pete always seems to leave a team(or school)in worse shape than when he got there...
Something 49er fans always seem to forget is to do a comparison of rosters from when each coach to their current teams.
Harbaugh inherited a playoff caliber team. Since he's taken over as coach of the 9ers, they have inserted (5) new starters out of 22 (Miller, Manningham, Goodwin, Smith, Rogers, and Whitner).
Carrol inherited an awful team with one of the oldest rosters in the NFL. Since he's taken over as coach of the Seahawks, they have inserted (16) new starters out of 22 (Wilson, Lynch, Rice, Tate, Miller, Okung, McQuistan, Giacomini, Branch, Clemons, Wright, Wagner, Sherman, Browner, Chancellor, and Thomas).
So Carrol has had to turn over 72% of his roster as compared to 22% for Harbaugh.
There is no way to compare these coaches right now. If anything it's more impressive that Carrol has turned his roster over completely and has his team challenging the 49ers for a division title after a complete roster overhaul in 3 years.
Does anyone actually think if the situation was reversed and Harbaugh had gone to Seattle, and Carrol to San Fran that harbaugh would have the same record.
This is apples to oranges. They are both fantastic coaches, and only time will tell which is the better coach over a long period of time. A snap shot of a 2 vs. 3 year period of teams in totally different situations is no way to make a good comparison.