After eight and a half years, Seattle Seahawks’ head coach Pete Carroll decided it was finally time to discuss the worst and most heavily criticized play in NFL history.
Feb. 1 marked the eight-year anniversary of Carroll’s ill-fated decision to have Russell Wilson throw from the goal line in the waning seconds of Super Bowl 49. As everyone knows, the balls went into the hands of New England Patriots’ cornerback Malcolm Butler — not into the hands of intended receiver Ricardo Lockette — which cost the Seahawks the chance at a Super Bowl repeat.
Seattle’s head coach continues to receive immense criticism for getting too cute with the play-calling as opposed to handing the ball off to superstar running back Marshawn Lynch, who only needed half a yard to win the game.
Making the Super Bowl 49 loss especially painful? The Seahawks never recovered from that loss. They never got to the NFC Championship Game again with Lynch, Russell Wilson and The Legion of Boom. Since 2015, the ‘Hawks have won only three playoff games.
Speaking to Seattle legend Richard Sherman on the “Richard Sherman Podcast”, (h/t Frankie Taddeo of Sports Illustrated), Carroll finally went in-depth about his decision to have Wilson throw instead of handing it off to Lynch:
“It wasn’t like by design. There was no agenda. That play just happened. You guys couldn’t hear for years, but when we got down there we had one timeout and so as soon as we got there, I said one of these plays we are going to have to throw it to get all four plays.
We ran the first play and I think what happened was Bill [Belichick] was late in sending in his goal line team and we had already sent in ’11’ [personnel] and that went through the play-callers’ [mind]. That’s what led them to throw it on that down. It had nothing to do with anything else. We had practiced it a million times, so I was rock solid on the philosophy of it. It was just the worst play that could’ve ever happened.”
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Of course, this play would have been considered pure genius if it worked out. Unfortunately for Seattle, Butler read the play perfectly and managed to beat Lockett to the ball.
Carroll even boldly stated that if the Seahawks had won Super Bowl 49, they would have gone on to win three in a row. That feels like a stretch, though, considering they finished 10-6 in 2015 and fell to Cam Newton and the top-seeded Carolina Panthers in the Divisional Round.
