Pete Carroll just lost a Pro Bowl CB to the last team Raiders fans expected

The Las Vegas Raiders made several major changes this offseason under head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Spytek. One of the biggest shifts came in the secondary, as four of the team's five Week 1 starters from last season parted ways with the franchise.

While the team has a handful of talented players in the cornerback room, the unit lacks any semblance of serious NFL experience. Eric Stokes is the veteran of the room, and he has played just 45 games through four professional seasons.

To remedy this issue, Raider Nation has been asking the team to add an experienced cornerback. Names like Jalen Ramsey and Mike Hilton have both been floated this offseason, but the team has only expressed serious interest in Shaq Griffin, whom they hosted on a visit a few weeks ago.

Raiders lose out on Shaq Griffin to Seahawks

This news was lost in the shuffle a bit, as it broke just minutes after the Raiders signed former Bengals linebacker Germaine Pratt. Any chance that he was going to sign with Las Vegas, however, evaporated on Wednesday when he signed with the Seahawks, according to Jordan Schultz.

Carroll coached Griffin for four seasons in Seattle, which included a Pro Bowl campaign in 2019. He has since bounced around the NFL, but most felt that if a reunion was in order, it would be with Carroll himself, and not necessarily the Seahawks, who are unrecognizable from 2020 when he left.

Las Vegas had the need for a cornerback, as well as the cap space, so many felt that the team would quickly get this done. However, his visit must have gone awry, as he settled for just a $3 million deal with Seattle, according to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler

The decision to pass on Griffin likely came down to the fact that he is quite similar to other players already in the room, and Carroll does not want to jeopardize the development of the team's young players by pushing in a player with a similar skill set.

It may seem like a bit of a gut punch for Carroll that Griffin chose to sign with the man who replaced him in Seattle. However, if the Raiders really wanted him, they had the cap flexibility to sweeten the deal, and ultimately, they did not.