How about a Super Bowl 49 thread?

Disagree. They had plenty of time.

And Carroll's explanation that he was playing for 3rd and 4th down and trying to "waste" a down was nonsensical.

 

I feel like I didn't even have time to process what had happened. We were all still flipping out over the Kearse catch - my kid made me replay it like five times, and then settling back in to see the Seahawks win. My wife says, "Now watch, the Patriots will intercept it here." I watch enough Bears games that red zone interceptions barely register with me.

 

You can say they had enough time, but it's pretty clear that having only one time out left is what led them to throw the ball on 2nd down.

Sure, they "could have" run the ball, even with one timeout left. But, they "would" have run it with two timeouts left.

 

"ESPN: The Magazine" had a stat in a graphic last week that the Seahawks run the ball 50 percent of the time in the red zone, 6th highest percentage in the league.

 

I rewound the Kearse catch to make my wife watch it, and was a little behind by the time of the interception.

Was already seeing the "oh my God" and "terrible call" posts/tweets before I saw the play. I knew they fucked up, but I was assuming they got sacked, not that they threw an interception.

 

I went back and looked at the end-of-game play by play between USC and Notre Dame in 2005, which I recalled as a similar situation for Carroll. He threw from the 13 (incomplete), then ran it with Bush once and Leinart twice, if I recall. I know he ended the game with three consecutive runs. Leinart fumbled on the second-to-last play, but it went out of bounds.

 

At least it wasn't a goddamn fade.

 

We all know they called that play because Robert Kraft's best friend told them to.

 

Me too. My wife can tell you Collinsworth merely echoed what I'd just said.
Most of the time Wilson takes great care of the ball and doesn't make bad throws, so I can understand the coaches putting the confidence in him, though it backfired in this case. You might say "Yeah, but he threw four picks against the Packers." Well, two of those were tipped by Kearse right into the hands of defenders, one was a great heads up play by Clinton-Dix and only one was truly a bad throw.
But even with that, Lynch is the main workhorse for that offense. Feed the Beast. If it doesn't work out, call the timeout and regroup. As others have said, that's where burning two timeouts came back to bite the Seahawks.

 

I wonder how much the Seahawks ability to move the ball downfield at the end of the first half played into the decision.
Seattle showed on that drive that they could coast down the field at will and the Patriots seemingly couldn't stop them. Maybe Pete got cocky?
Listening to his postgame quotes, it seemed like he never even entertained the thought that New England would stop them from scoring. And I can't really blame him. In that second quarter, they drove the length of the field in what 40 seconds? And then they did it again in the final two minutes before that second down play.
I'd imagine that, combined with the ballsy call of Belichick not calling timeout and thus in effect daring the Seahawks to win the game, made it seem like a no-brian decision that Seattle would score.
Felt that way to me anyway. I was already accepting the touchdown was a given and it wasn't until Belichick let the clock run that I thought "Wait, the Pats aren't going to get another chance here? DAMN IT! This one might be over."

 

It really was a fascinating chess match going on.