The Seattle Seahawks entered Super Bowl XLVIII attempting to make history as the 8th franchise to be crowned NFL champions in consecutive seasons. However, with the game on the line, Head Coach Pete Carroll and Offensive Coordinator Darrell Bevel made one of the biggest blunders in sports history and will now go down in infamy courtesy of ‘The Call.’
With just 26 seconds remaining, the Seahawks found themselves on second down with just one yard separating the team from the Lombardi Trophy and Super Bowl glory. Marshawn Lynch aka Beast Mode, was born for that type of situation. The powerful and hulking running back amassed 102 yards on 24 carries with many of the yards coming while dragging helpless Patriots defenders along for the ride. Lynch never lost yardage the entire game and had only two carries with no gain (once in the first quarter, once in the third). He scored a 3-yard TD earlier in the game and just brought the team to the doorstep of glory on the previous play.
Sure the Patriots were expecting a Lynch to get the football and prepared accordingly. Still, there is zero chance they could’ve prevented Lynch from getting into the end zone – not three times from one yard away. Impossible.
That didn’t stop Carroll and Bevel from making the biggest gaffe in NFL history. In an effort to try to outsmart Bill Belichick, the Seahawks coaches called a passing play. That alone was grounds enough to warrant immediate drug and concussion testing. To make things worse, the pass was designed to go into the middle of the field, where all the big and scary defenders that made Carroll tremble in terror.
The play call was akin to Phil Jackson using Michael Jordan as a decoy to get Dennis Rodman a last second three-point shot in the 7th game of an NBA Finals with the Bulls down by one point. Nobody would’ve expected the call, but that’s because would be stupid.
Don’t just take my word for it either. Emmitt Smith, a three-time Super Bowl champion and the league’s all-time leading rusher stated, “That was the worst play call I’ve seen in the history of football” via Twitter.
Nearly everyone agrees with Smith’s assessment – except the Seahawks coaches. For days now, Carroll has been trying to justify his atrocious decision in the media. He has talked about matchups, timeouts and personnel as reasoning behind his idiotic decision. Like ‘The Call,’ none of his reasons make sense. If Carroll was so afraid of the Patriots stacked defensive line, why would he allow a play calls for the football to be thrown right into the middle of the defense? Regarding the time, Lynch’s 4-yard carry to bring the Seahawks to the goal line occurred with more than a minute remaining on the clock. With one timeout remaining, that left plenty of time to run the ball three times, if needed. However, Carroll has stated on numerous occasions that running the ball on second down never crossed his mind. That alone is as mind-boggling as the play itself.
To Carroll’s credit, he fell on the sword and took the blame. Bevel cannot say the same as he threw his wide receiver under the bus immediately after the game by suggesting Ricardo Lockette, “could have done a better job staying strong on the ball,” according to Gregg Bell of the Tacoma News Tribune. I really wish Carroll and Bevel would do their best Lynch impression and just shut up and stop doing interviews.
While Wilson made a valiant effort to help give the opportunity to win the game, he is not free from blame either. Though his coaches put him in an awful situation, as the quarterback, he had the authority to audible out of the foolish play call and hand the ball to Beast Mode anyway. If they just had to pass, he could have called a safer bootleg play since Patriots defenders whiffed on tacking the skillful, scrambling QB all night long. Cocky coach Carroll might have scowled and frowned at his QB for going against his wishes but any bad feelings would’ve been washed away by champagne as they celebrated consecutive Super Bowl championships. Now, they will need something much stronger than champagne to wash away the bitter taste of defeat and the knowledge that it could have been averted by simply handing the ball to the beast and allowing him to do what he does best.
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