February 1, 2015: Pete Carroll Calls a Pass
The defending Champion Seattle Seahawks had a 10-point lead with 8 minutes left in regulation, and blew it. The New England Patriots took a 28-24 lead with 2:02 left. Quarterback Russell Wilson drove the Hawks to the Patriot 1-yard line with 26 seconds to go.
With the ball there, the call seemed obvious: A running play. Possibly Wilson on a quarterback sneak, like Bart Starr to win the 1967 NFL Championship Game, the Ice Bowl, for the Green Bay Packers. Or a handoff to Marshawn Lynch, the running back known as "Beast Mode," a 5-time Pro Bowler, who had already scored a touchdown in the game, and had gotten the ball 4 yards to the 1-yard line on the previous play.
Instead, Seahawk head coach Pete Carroll called for a pass, from Wilson to Ricardo Lockette. Patriot cornerback Malcolm Butler correctly figured out that Lockette was the target, and intercepted the pass. The Patriots won the game.
It's hard to imagine now, with Ohio State University having had Heisman Trophy-winning quarterbacks and winning National Championships with a great passing game, but there was a time, in the 1960s and '70s, when their head coach was Woody Hayes. Famous for a running game described as "Three yards and a cloud of dust," he was known for hating the forward pass enough to say, "There are three things that can happen when you throw the ball, and two of them are bad." Meaning an incomplete pass and an interception.
Malcolm Butler clinched victory for the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLIX with the most famous interception in football history.
Cris Collinsworth, a 3-time Pro Bowler who had played in Super Bowls XVI and XXIII for the Cincinnati Bengals, was broadcasting the game for NBC, and spoke for so many people watching:
I'm sorry, but I can't believe the call... You've got Marshawn Lynch in the backfield. You've got a guy that has been borderline unstoppable in this part of the field. I can't believe the call...
If I lose the Super Bowl because Marshawn Lynch can’t get it in from the 1-yard line, so be it. So be it! But there is no way.
Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders, analyzing the game for CBS, called it "one of the worst calls in Super Bowl history." Peter King, the main football writer for Sports Illustrated, and a winner of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Dick McCann Award for writers, used the exact same words: "one of the worst calls in Super Bowl history." Hall-of-Famer Emmitt Smith, the NFL's all-time leading rusher, went even further, calling it "the worst play call in the history of football."
So that's, effectively, 3 members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, 3 guys who really know football -- one on offense, one on defense, and one watching from above -- saying it was a bad call, essentially blaming Pete Carroll for throwing away back-to-back wins in the Super Bowl, a rare achievement, and possibly Carroll's own eventual election to the Hall.
Is there any way to defend the call? Not really. Is there any way to say that Carroll shouldn't be blamed for the loss? Yes. Can any such way be taken seriously? Well, Wilson could have said, "This is a bad call. I'm calling a different play in the huddle." He could have shown the leadership that a great quarterback would show. He didn't.
We can also give Butler credit for pulling off the key play. Then there's the Seahawks' offense. Their 20 1st downs wasn't that bad, compared to the Pats' 25. But they were only 3-for-10 on 3rd down, compared to the Pats' 8-for-14. They also committed more penalties, 7-5, for twice as many yards, 70-36. And had less time of possession, 26:14 to 33:46.
It took them 20 minutes and 13 seconds to get their 1st score. Their last score came with 19 minutes and 54 seconds to go. They blew a 10-point lead, and they blew it with 8 minutes to go. Blowing a 10-point lead tied what was then a Super Bowl record. It would be eclipsed 2 years later by the Atlanta Falcons -- also against the Patriots. Hmmmm...
Did they cheat in this game? There has never been a serious accusation of it. But think of it this way: We have more proven instances of Belichick and/or Brady cheating, and the other benefiting from that cheating, than we have proven instances of them not cheating. So which is more likely: That these were the only times they cheated, or that they cheated in many more games?
In 2019, a poll ranked this game 8th on a list of the 100 Greatest Games of the NFL's 1st 100 years.
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February 1, 2015 was a Sunday. Baseball was out of season. There were 2 games played in the NBA. The New York Knicks beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 92-80 at Madison Square Garden. And the Miami Heat beat the Boston Celtics, 83-75 at the TD Garden in Boston.
And there were 4 games played in the NHL:
* The Arizona Coyotes beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-2 at the Bell Center in Montreal.
* The St. Louis Blues beat the Washington Capitals, 4-3 at the Verizon Center (now the Capital One Arena) in Washington.
* The Nashville Predators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-0 at the Consol Energy Center (now the PPG Paints Arena) in Pittsburgh.
* And the Minnesota Wild beat the Vancouver Canucks, 4-2 at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver.
And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Birmingham team Aston Villa, 5-0 at the Emirates Stadium in North London.
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