Seahawks ‘just don‘t understand’ the Super Bowl-losing play call

nypost.com ^ | February 2, 2015 | Paul Schwartz

[Berlin_Freeper]

There were plenty of explanations offered, first by Seahawks coach Pete Carroll, then by offensive coordinator Darren Bevell and quarterback Russell Wilson, but at the end of Super Bowl XLIX, with everyone left breathless, the question still hanging out there along with the confetti falling on the victorious Patriots:

How in the world does Marshawn Lynch, as fearsome a runner as there is, not get the ball on second down from the New England 1-yard line in the final seconds?

“We had it,’’ Seahawks linebacker Bruce Irvin said. “I don’t know how you don’t give it to the best back in the league on not even the 1-yard line? We were on the half-yard line and we throw a slant. I don’t know what the offense had going on, what they saw. I just don’t understand.’’

[discostu]

Football is a dance of wills, and successful coaches generally build their empire on doing the unexpected. Part of what makes that play good is it’s not expected, it goes counter to all the “normal” logic of the game. Similar to Carroll going for the fake FG on 4th and 10 in the conference round, all normal logic says take the easy FG, end the shutout, and take momentum. Except Carroll had noticed in tape review that GB had a player who tended to bite to the line on FGs abandoning his job of covering his zone in case of a fake or fire drill, so they designed a play to pass into his zone, TD, and those 4 points decide who does and doesn’t go to Phoenix.

And again, it’s clearly worked for them in the past which is why it was on tape. Which is why Belichick practiced against it, but even then it took multiple runs for Bill to teach Butler the right way to break up that play. If there’s really a problem with that play it’s the opponent. You give Bill two weeks to study tape and he WILL spot those tendencies, because that’s what he does, he looks for your strengths and then finds a way to make them not work. Which is another vote for don’t run it in with Lynch (a clear strength of the team who’d been stopped on a couple of short yardage plays already in the game). But then you’ve got to decide where to throw. Pete went for a play he’s used before to good effect, most days against most coaches it would be unexpected.

And if Bill hadn’t spotted it, or Butler hadn’t been taught how to play against it, or Butler is just a little slower on his jump, Lockette gets the TD, and everybody now is singing the praises for Pete doing the unexpected, going deep into his bag of tricks and pulling out a winner. Most paths to the Lombardi these days involve at least a few plays where if they don’t work everybody thinks the coach is an idiot, but they do, so he’s not. Both Pete and Bill had nailed a few of those to get here. And on this play they both did one more (if the Hawks get the TD Bill is an idiot for not calling TO), but only one of them got to succeed this time.