Can I defend Pete Carroll for that last decision?

[camdawg]

But I believe I understand what Pete's thinking was in choosing to run a passing play. He was attempting to preserve the possibility he might need all three plays to score.

Remember...it was 2nd and goal at the 2 yard line with only 1 timeout remaining. That means the Hawks could possibly have THREE shots at the end zone...but it would be extremely difficult, even with the one timeout, to execute three running plays in 26 seconds. No matter how you slice it, if the Seahawks do not run one passing play out of those three possible attempts then they run a big risk of only being able to take two shots at the end zone with a high likelihood of time running out before the guys can line up and get off the final play.

In this thread, I think you're forgetting a very key point. Yes, we call a pass play in case we do need all three downs we have left to score.

But it was BY CHOICE that we snapped the ball with 26 seconds left. Marshawn was fully up off the ground, and coming back to our huddle with 56 seconds left. We did not need to run off so much time before our second down play, we did so BY CHOICE.

By making that choice, yes, we probably did have to pass on second down. But the way to exorcise the demons from Atlanta was not to put ourselves into a situation where the clock could possibly become our own enemy. Look, if Marshawn scores with 35-40 seconds left, and Tom and Gronk get us at the end like Matt and Tony did, that sucks. But that's life. Sometimes top notch players will get you.

But we improved in so many ways after the Atlanta game (Marshawn not fumbling at bad times, not having bad end of half game management, younger players getting older and not having so many coverage screwups leading to big Falcon plays), that we are really taking the wrong lesson from that loss if our main goal is to play keep away from Tom, and not just do what it takes to score.

By burning the clock, and then likely having to pass, we are BY CHOICE, going into HORRIBLE personnel matchups. There's three corners that you do not want to face when you have to throw at the one yard line. We fortunately have one of the three in Richard. The other two play for New England. BB has plenty of flaws as a corner, but don't we all remember how laughable it was on MNF last year when the Rams tried to win at the goal line by throwing a fade on BB? It had no chance.

If we have to throw down there, we are extremely unlikely to beat BB or Revis with the receivers we have. So that really limits the pass plays we can call. Forget fade routes. The Patriots knew this, and can set their defense to stop the other passes we might try. So those aren't likely to work either, as we saw.

Willingly putting ourselves into a situation where BB can be at his most dominant (his jam of Kearse at the LOS being part of the reason for the game ending pick), along with Revis....just a terribly thought out idea of how to use our personnel vs. New England's. And if Darrell Bevell thought taking time away from Brady made it worth it to go into these matchups which drastically favored New England, he was dead wrong.

 

[Tokadub]

Thank you Camdawg for finally pointing out what I was waiting for someone to say the whole time as I was reading this thread.

The whole premise of the OP's post is flawed. Here is what really happened:

1) After Jermaine Kearse's miracle catch we call a timeout with 1:06 remaining. We have 1st down at the 5 yard line with another timeout remaining. Time would never be an issue in this scenario whether you throw or run unless your coaches totally goof things up like they did.


2) During the timeout they decided to go with the smart play of running Marshawn Lynch, what they failed to do is to predetermine what they should do on 2nd and maybe even 3rd down (if necessary)... they did not seem to be in any way prepared to save their final timeout for 4th down.

So despite Carroll saying that they were well aware of the situation, based on the simple math involved with the time here what they did was completely opposite of understanding the situation.

The most likely outcome of Lynch running on 1st and 5 was either a touchdown or less than 2 yards to go. The coaches should of anticipated this and told the players if we gain yards on this first down quickly run again with Lynch on 2nd down!


3) Instead of being prepared to quickly run Lynch again (or possibly a QB sneak or designed run) on 2nd down the Seahawks were as slow as they could possibly be... they used the entire 40 seconds (play clock limit)... if they had adequately prepared with their timeout on the previous play there is no reason why they should of ran 40 seconds off the clock.

The Eagles average a play every 20 seconds or so for an ENTIRE GAME right??? So why were the Seahawks in this situation not ready to run the ball on 2nd and 1 when they called a timeout just 1 play ago... it blows my mind...


4) Instead the brilliant Bevell takes 40 seconds off the clock and still decides to call the worst play in NFL history!!!


5) If the Seahawks were prepared to win the game this scenario should of played out like this (and I'm just assuming it goes all the way to 4th down even though Lynch probably scores on 2nd or 3rd for us):

- 1st down Lynch runs with 1:06 remaining
- 2nd down Lynch runs with 40 seconds remaining
- 3rd down Lynch runs with 15 seconds remaining
- Call a timeout with 5 seconds remaining
- 4th down Lynch runs with 5 seconds remaining and we win/lose on this play



Conclusion:

As another poster said Lynch was up after the first down play around the 1 minute mark... this means we just had to run 2 more plays in the next 50 seconds which would easily give us enough time to call our final timeout before our 4th down and leaving the Patriots with no time left.

It's not like our slow offensive line was gonna have to run potentially 80 yards down-field during this series... we were sitting on the 1 yard line there is no excuse to be so slow between plays...

As this espn article simply explains there are several teams that average ENTIRE GAMES running plays in under 25 seconds:

http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/id/87601/inside-slant-plays-and-time-of-possession

1. Buffalo Bills (21.8)
2. Denver Broncos (23.2)
3. Philadelphia Eagles (23.3)
4. Baltimore Ravens (24.4)
5. New England Patriots (25.0)

So all we had to do is run 2 plays from the 1 yard line in the amount of time some teams average for entire games... There is just no excuse why we wasted 40 seconds and then proceeded to lose the game with the worst call of all time.

 

[thegreeninyoureye]

If Pete wants to own up to the decision then maybe we should blame it on him then. Terrible coaching in this game at the end. Pete in his presser said he wanted to pass.

 

[Hasselbeck]

Geez one poor playcall and this board goes on full meltdown mode...

Yes that sucked but the guys made it to the super bowl again. Can we just celebrate that? NE just made a very good play. Look at closely. They were well prepared for that type of play.

This game will hurt for a long time but is it too much to ask to at least celebrate the fact these guys are the #2 best team in footbsll? Sooner or later you gotta move on from that play.

Poor doesn't describe it. It was the worst play call in the history of the Super Bowl.

And yes its too much to ask to celebrate being the Silver Medalist. This team should be having a parade in a couple of days and celebrating something historic. Instead it will go down in history for all the wrong reasons.

 

[retro74]

It's going to be a long off-season

People will certainly remember this Super Bowl, that's for certain. It's sad that around the world the Champions are known as "that team that cheated with the balls" to most observers

Jack Nicklaus used to say some majors were handed to him as the others guys couldn't get the job done and some he went out and won. We gift wrapped this one and put a bow on top

 

[seahawk12thman]

There was enough time to run the ball three times (Seattle had a timeout). Seattle had the #3 rush offense of all time, the toughest RB to tackle ever, vs. the 30th ranked power situations run defense, in the highest leverage set of downs in NFL history. From the 1 yard line.

Never in the history of the NFL did a situation call for a run more.

that sums it up for me. Nothing up until that point matters. Bevell blew it

 

[RedAlice]

There was enough time to run the ball three times (Seattle had a timeout). Seattle had the #3 rush offense of all time, the toughest RB to tackle ever, vs. the 30th ranked power situations run defense, in the highest leverage set of downs in NFL history. From the 1 yard line.

Never in the history of the NFL did a situation call for a run more.

It was shocking as it played out. Even the people by me who never watch football were shocked at not running Lynch with that many time outs. Well, everyone loud was saying: Lynch, time outs, Hawks are gonna win. It took a minute to even realize Hawks passed after it was intercepted. The whole play was very surreal.

Then: Hey Alice! This is what happened when your team played us!! Hawks just lost same way the Rams did. They were faster then me on figuring that one out.

But, in the history of the NFL, the same situation called for a run whenever that week was Rams played Chargers. Rams chose to pass. As Hawks did. Same result. As I was heckled about tonight.

 

[birdman5]

Protect the ball! It's about the ball!

 

[HawkMeat]

I have absolutely no problem with the play calling, I just wished we had called it earlier in the season and got some real time game experience. Our red zone offense was a problem, but I am more concerned about our defense. It almost feel the defense did not stand up when we normally do. i don't think LOB was healthy. Losing Lane and Avril just made a big difference we could not recover from. We did not have Lane earlier, so I would have thought Avril made the difference today, totally. Looking forward to the next season.

losing Quinn to weeks ago hurt the most. Pete should have taken over as soon as he found out Quinn was a Falcon.

Yeah. Quinn just inked a five year deal according to schefter. Sigh

 

[homerun1970]

Off topic but how is it that the Falcons arent being investigated for tampering as well as the crowd noise?