If there was an award for kicking your own butt over the next six months, Pete Carroll would not only win it, they’d name it after him. At this point, if you’re reading this, you already know what happened.
With first-and-goal at the one, 26 seconds on the clock, a time our in their pocket and the Vince Lombardi Trophy already being mentally passed around the Seahawks’ sideline, Seattle made what will widely be regarded as the dumbest playcall in Super Bowl history.
Instead of handing the ball off to one of the best running backs in the game, giving him a shot and picking up just one yard, Carroll and Seahawks offensive coordinator called a slant pass. A pass that was picked off spectacularly by New England Patriots rookie Malcolm Butler out of NCAA Division II West Alabama.
Emmitt Smith, Hall of Fame running back for the Dallas Cowboys and three-time Super Bowl champion called it the “Worst play in the history of football” immediately after the fact on Twitter. In a sport where plays where plays get canonized with names like “The Catch,” “The Immaculate Reception,” “The Miracle at the Meadowlands” and “The Helmet Catch,” this one gets a name too: “The “Worst Call in History.”
What makes it worse is why the call happened.
Here’s how Pete Carroll explained it in what had to be the press conference version of a root canal after the game.
“We were going to run the ball in to win the game, but not on that play,” Carroll said. “I didn’t want to waste a run play on their goal-line guys. It was a clear thought, but it didn’t work out right. The guy (Butler) made a play that no one would have thought he could make.”
https://twitter.com/Godforshort/status/562088115246862337
Then Pete Carroll has never watched a Super Bowl before because the exact same thing happened five years before in Super Bowl XLIII. Kurt Warner tried that same slant pass to Anquan Boldin on first and goal at the one with 18 seconds to go in the first half. Outside linebacker James Harrison, who at that point had three interceptions in his career, banged into Boldin, picked off the pass and returned it 100 yards for a touchdown. The Cardinals ended up losing the Super Bowl by six points. They make a different play call there, they win 30-20 and all have Super Bowl rings.
This exact play has claimed a victim before, is what I’m saying.
Marshawn Lynch, Marshawn Lynch Marshawn Lynch, Marshawn Lynch!! Why have beast mode if you not gonna use him with 1/2 a yard !?! Baddd call.
— Gerald McCoy (@Geraldini93) February 2, 2015
Carroll’s explanation? I don’t buy it. You don’t worry about time on the clock when there’s just 29 seconds left. If you run the ball and score, maybe the Patriots have 15 seconds to drive into field goal range. Sure, the “Legion of Boom” played like the “Legion of Bums” in the fourth quarter, but you still had to like your chances to play 15 seconds of decent defensive football.
No. This call wasn’t about time. It was about Marshawn Lynch. If Lynch carries that ball in from the one, he finishes the game with 103 yards rushing and two touchdowns including the game winner. He’s the MVP. And Pete Carroll didn’t want that.
Seattle is married to Lynch and they know it. It’s why they’re reportedly working on a contract extension with him that will pay him around $10 million a year. So this wasn’t about pissing off Lynch and running him out of town. This was all about public relations and Lynch’s inability to play that particular game.
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Lynch had spent all Super Bowl week letting the media and the NFL know that he was not going to play their game. He was “just there to not get fined.” Was Lynch going to say he was going to Disneyland? When handed the keys to his MVP truck, what was Lynch going to say? Lynch was going to be a problem and if that play call, The Worst Call in Super Bowl History worked, Russell Wilson gets to be MVP, make his Disneyland obligation and gives a teary, heartfelt interview that inspires a generation.
Marshawn Lynch would have grunted, blew a snot-rocket out of his nose, grabbed his crotch and told Al Michaels, “You know why I’m here.”
I wish we could have seen it.
