How in the world can Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll make the call that may have ultimately cost his team a Super Bowl win? I think about coaching decisions all the time, not just to second guess them, but to figure out the “why that call, when something else is so obvious to the rest of us?” I’m interested in the thought process that leads to the call; a cause-and-effect thing. I’m not looking for justification. I’m more curious than anything else. Almost everyone, from NBC’s Cris Collinsworth to the guy who believes he should be an NFL coach because he wins his fantasy league every year, agrees the play call should have been Marshawn Lynch off tackle to get a yard and the lead with less than 25 seconds to go. Likely a game winner. Right? So why would Carroll not think New England head coach Bill Belichick is thinking likewise? Folks on the Patriots side of the ball have to be thinking “if we can’t stop what we know is coming, we won’t deserve to be champions.” Likewise, an offense, and in particular the line, would think the same thing about gaining just one yard. So Carroll opted to get cute. Try and fool the Patriots, and if it failed, there’d be two more downs, a timeout and about 20 seconds to work with. I’ve never coached football, and my playing days remain only in my sore knees, but it seems to me the slant is more of an open-field play, where yards after the catch would be the important part of the play. And it’s more effective when the backline of the end zone isn’t working as a defender; the secondary knows they only have to cover so far back, and can cheat on the line of scrimmage. There’s the key! Because the defense was protecting against the remote possibility of a pass, but cheating toward the line of scrimmage because the entire caring free world is expecting Lynch to go off tackle, Malcolm Butler could jump the route, risk the pass interference call, and make the play that insures he’ll never have to pay for a meal in Boston ever again. The Patriots had containment on all plays designed for Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson to roll out or bootleg, so that ruled out that possibility. But if Seattle is going to pass, wouldn’t a play-action to Lynch have been in order? One receiver out in the flat; if he’s open, touchdown. If not, throw the ball to a paid customer and try again on third down. Second-guessing is, as it always will be, one of the best parts of sports. And coaches at all levels know and, to differing degrees, accept that it comes with the job. This play insures Carroll’s name will come up in the fourth quarter of close Super Bowl games for a generation. I understand coaches have to make important decisions in less time than most of us take to decide on where to go out to dinner. There are a few of my friends who still question Kansas City third base coach Mike Jirschele’s decision to hold Alex Gordon in the bottom of the ninth of Game 7. (I’ll save that for a future column, maybe). It’s not like Carroll and his staff were uncertain of themselves; if that were the case they’d have used that last timeout. They made the call, thinking there would be another opportunity, and Butler made the play that subsitutes second chances with second guesses. If Butler drops the ball, we’re not even having this discussion. Credit him for making the play that makes Carroll look foolish. There’s no guarantee Seattle would have scored on either of the next two downs. Still, if the Seahawks were to go down, they’d probably prefer to go down with the ball in the hands of their best offensive player, and that’s not what happened. And who’s to say the run would have worked? Anybody remember Earnest Byner from the Cleveland Browns in the 1987 AFC Championship game? If not, run a search on it. This isn’t the first time Carroll has blown a play call in a championship game. Remember the end of the 2006 Rose Bowl when Southern California opted to got for it on 4th-and-2, instead of punting, and gave Texas and Vince Young a shorter trip to the end zone for the national championship winning touchdown? On that play, Carroll’s best running back, Heisman winner Reggie Bush, wasn’t even on the field for the snap. Is it possible Carroll doens’t handle tight leads well? Twice he’s defied conventional wisdom in a close championship game, and it cost his team dearly. To his credit, his teams have won three chmpsionships, two at USC and last year’s Super Bowl, in convincing fashion. Maybe if USC punts, Young and the Longhorns score anyway. The best thing about Sunday’s game is the finish we’ll remember a lot longer than the fighting after the interception, which could have been the players taking their frustrations with the play call out on the Patriots. And the viewing public, myself included, would take a Super Bowl like that every year.
