LeBron James is among the best players in the NBA right now, but had things gone Pete Carroll’s way, he could have been a star for the Seattle Seahawks.
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On the Monday Night Football game last week, LeBron appeared alongside Peyton and Eli Manning on their Manningcast segment, and he went into detail about how he could have been playing in the NFL as he had offers from multipls teams to join.
Pete Carroll of the Seattle Seahawks and Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys had offered the Lakers star a contract during the 2011 NBA lockout season, but James didn’t take either of them up on their offers, choosing to stick with basketball.
We could have seen @KingJames in the NFL 😳 pic.twitter.com/79YtUae7oo
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) September 28, 2021
Pete Carroll confirms rumors that Seahawks offered LeBron James a contract
Until recently, there was no way to verify whether LeBron had actually received offers from NFL teams. Of course, it’s unlikley that LeBron would have gone on national TV and lied about something like that, but it was still something to wonder about.
However, Carroll finally broke the silence, speaking to the Seattle Times about what went down in 2011. He confirmed that Seattle definitely toyed around with the idea of adding LeBron, sending him an offer. Carroll couldn’t recall the exact specifics of the contract, but he definitely remembers there being one. He said:
“I can’t remember the specifics of that, but you can see why I would, there’s been plenty of evidence. I think we were having fun with it at the time, but I’m sure there were some serious thoughts in my head that it could be a good idea.”
Carroll also added that he had no idea how good LeBron could have been. Everyone knew that the then Heat star was an incredible physical specimen, his athletic ability off the charts at the time, but would it translate to the NFL?
“I don’t know what he couldn’t do. He’s an all-time athlete and competitor. It’s not the same game, it doesn’t mean it necessarily carries over, of course, but it would have been fun to try to find out, I know that.”
It definitely would have been fun to see LeBron in the NFL too. Can you imagine a world where right now we’d be watching Russell Wilson throw touchdowns to LeBron James? It’s crazy to think about, but it was definitely a huge possibility at one point.
