Posted on 02/02/2015 1:47:52 PM PST by OddLane
Everyone knew it was coming. Second-and-1 on the 1-yard line. Marshawn Lynch was waiting in the backfield, poised to do what he was put on this Earth to do: Get a touchdown — this touchdown. The football gods had telegraphed how they wanted the game to end, directing a floating ball straight into Jermaine Kearse’s hands. Beast Mode was going to drag the New England team kicking and screaming into the end zone if he had to. But the play call came in, Russell Wilson attempted a doomed pass that Malcolm Butler intercepted, and it was Seattle that punched and screamed its way off the field.
The Web erupted in outrage that Beast Mode never got his moment. For Seahawks fans, calling a pass was essentially Pete Carroll denying his team’s fate. For many others, it seemed like an inexplicable miscue.
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.com ...
Even more, someone ran the numbers on that play over years and that was still the first interception. By the way, had it worked, would Belicheck have been the one that called the wrong play?
Thought they would burn the clock at least and run it. Failing a TD, they still had an easy FG.
the second it moved to a play-action-pass it was doomed and who the hell throws up the middle with under 5yrds anyway.
Great game. Lots of great audibles.
d’oh!
That was epic.
Green Bay fans will tell you that the Seahawks shouldn't have been on the field at all. They should have been watching the SB on TV as Aaron and the Pack battled it out with the Patriots.
Seattle used up their luck two weeks before on a string of low-percentage desperation plays with only minutes to go. Fake punt, onside kick, hail-Mary passes to tie the game and then win in overtime. The chances of ALL these plays being successful is so vanishingly small, yet it happened.
The Packers should send the Seahawks a thank-you note for their epic FAIL, because it overshadows their own. Now both teams understand what it's like to have the game in your grasp and go down in flames.
“..they didn’t expect their receiver to catch the ball, but they didn’t expect it to be intercepted either.”
Right, that’s what Quin Hillyer was saying over at NRO, but, even aside from hindsight being 20/20 it doesn’t make sense.
Hey, Hillyer probably knows a lot more about football than I do, and obviously Carroll does, but I think in a pinch, don’t you go with your strongest suit?
Not only Lynch, but Wilson’s a great runner too.
Lockette
Yep. It was as good of a read by the DB as you will ever see. Sometimes the other guy just makes a play...
If they didn’t expect the ball to be caught why would you throw it in the middle? If that was the coaches expectation it should have been a safe fade pass.
New slogan for them;
Call Nationwide because
your kid died.
Nationwide cuz you just died....
That is He Larry Us!!!
People talk about a “lucky bounce” for the Pats, but I think the pendulum on this is 180 in the other direction.
Seattle needed a lucky break to get to where they did on that play, and the defensive back made a great play to defend, but the ball took an insanely favorable bounce for Seattle. I give the receiver a lot of credit for catching it, but...most objective observers would agree it was a highly improbable placement of a deflected ball to fall where it did to be caught.
I think the interception by Butler was a far better conceived individual effort and pure football play than that crazy catch that put Seattle near the goal line.
That catch on the ground isn’t likely to happen again like that in hundreds, if not thousands of iterations.
That read by a defensive back, knowing the offensive set, and reading the play to make a athletic break on the ball was a well executed play. The only luck on that was having the pass play called instead of a run play.
And that isn’t luck...it is a mistake, in my opinion.
“The real shame is that we were robbed of the chance to see what Marshawn Lynch would do in an interview as the Super Bowl winning touchdown scorer. I bet you wouldn’t be able to shut him up.”
Maybe. But is was DEFINITELY worth it not to have listen to Richard Sherman run his mouth for the next six months. Probably even Campbells won’t being showing him selling soup much anymore.
Yogi Berra; “It ain’t over till it’s over”. And it’s OVER, said and done. In the history books.
Seattle used up their luck when the battered ball fell in K’s kap.
BTTT.
It wasn’t psychic or a fix. It’s called having 2 weeks to look at tape and game plan. Tendencies can be seen and capitalized on. The fact is that in and goals from the 1 Lynch actually fails more often than he succeeds, and the league as a whole is passing in that situation more and more often (over 100 times this season). Bill saw that they liked to do stacked receiver in goal line passes, let the first set the pick so the second can catch the TD, and they coached to spot that look and jump the route taking an angle that you don’t get picked. Just good coaching by one of the league’s best game planners, who has a long history of planning to take out your strengths.
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