Individually, Carlton players won the leading goalkicker awards in both the men's and women's senior competitions: Harry McKay winning the Coleman Medal with 58 goals, and Darcy Vescio winning their second leading goalkicker award with 16 goals.
Carlton terminated its alignment with the Northern Blues in the Victorian Football League in March 2020 as a cost-saving measure during the coronavirus pandemic; and will re-establish its reserves team for the first time since 2002, which will contest its fourth overall season in the VFL.
[6] The club became debt-free for the first time since financing the construction of Ikon Park's Legends' Stand in 1996, having cleared $7 million in debt since 2017, despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the season began, Australia had largely settled into a paradigm of most states maintaining zero COVID-19 cases outside of their international travel quarantine systems; this allowed football games to be played in front of crowds, usually with reduced capacity, and unhindered interstate travel was permitted without quarantine.
However, the different state governments often responded quickly to small numbers or even single virus cases being discovered in the community; this meant border restrictions or quarantine periods were at times re-introduced at short notice, impacting interstate travel for games; and, in some cases, that city- or state-wide lockdowns could be imposed within the impacted states,[8] precluding football activities altogether.
Lo Giudice's replacement, club director and former PriceWaterhouseCoopers CEO Luke Sayers, was announced in April with the pair to prepare for the transition during the year.
[15] David Teague continued in his second full season as appointed senior coach, having also served a half-season as caretaker in 2019.
[20] Long serving assistant coach John Barker, who had also served as caretaker senior coach for part of the 2015 season, departed the club in June after 10½ years, a few months earlier than his originally planned departure at the end of the season.
The club still maintained a mathematical chance of making finals until Round 22, but ultimately finished 13th with an 8–14 record.
[67] The winner of the John Nicholls Medal was Sam Walsh, who polled 183 votes to win the award for the first time in his career.
Most significant among the list changes in the women's team for the 2021 season was the loss of foundation player Sarah Hosking to Richmond, and the acquisition of former Melbourne captain Elise O'Dea – both in trades.
Although the team was still in contention for sixth place entering the final round, this relied on a heavy victory and other results falling Carlton's way, which did not occur.
Across the entire season, Carlton was 0–4 against top eight clubs – including three losses by a goal or less, two of which occurred in the opening two rounds – and 5–0 against the bottom six.
After having an eighteen season reserves alignment with the Northern Bullants\Blues club in the Victorian Football League, Carlton terminated the agreement in March 2020 as a cost-saving measure during the coronavirus pandemic.
New players signed to the club's VFL list included former AFL players James Parsons (Geelong), Ben Crocker (Adelaide/Collingwood)[96] and Ryley Stoddart (Sydney); former AFL-listed players Fraser Phillips (Carlton), Tom North (Fremantle), Harry Reynolds (Sydney), Cody Hirst (Sydney), Will Golds (Hawthorn) and Toby Wooller (Brisbane);[97][37] as well as Alex Cincotta, Daniel Guccione, Cooper Stephens, Stefan Radovanovic, Lachie Potter, Aaron Gundry, Lachie Bond, Edward Delany, Matt Shannon, Dale Marshall, Lachie Swaney, Ben Caluzzi, Lachlan Gawel, Owen King, Zane Barzen, Ben Nikolovski[98][37] and Alex Mirkov, who was added to the club's senior list during the mid-season draft.