"Waste a play" was poor choice of words - not intent

I hear a lot of people, including my favorite radio personality, recall Pete's account of the play call in which Pete casually refers to "we were going to waste a play", referring to the slant route. I don't think that's what Pete meant. I think he was just trying to explain that since we needed to stop the clock at least once in addition to our timeout, we might as well take a chance in the end zone before burning it.

Not saying it was the smart call or anything, of course, but I think it's unfair for people to think Pete was genuinely throwing a play away at that point.

Yea, I think he just worded it poorly. I took it to mean he was going to run twice, and throw once, so they "wasted" 2nd down on the pass play. Definitely an odd way to put it though.

"waste a play" was Pete's way of justifying why he didn't run the ball.

If we run the ball and get stuffed, then he has to burn the last TO. If we pass and it's incomplete then we have two more downs, a TO and 5-6 less seconds on the clock for Brady to work with.

If this sounds like I'm also justifying this horrific line of thinking, please don't take it that way. It's still the dumbest call in SB history.

Pete Carroll should not be calling offensive plays. If he is, it means our OC is truly worthless.

Either way, they need to find a new play caller, someone who is more in touch with the flow of the game and the identity of the team.

hawknation2015":3tz9gb0p said:

Pete Carroll should not be calling offensive plays. If he is, it means our OC is truly worthless. .

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He didn't, he's protecting his OC. He might have said "throw it".......but he didn't call for the slant, that was all Bevell.

Sgt. Largent":f2is3xwm said:

hawknation2015":f2is3xwm said:

Pete Carroll should not be calling offensive plays. If he is, it means our OC is truly worthless. .

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He didn't, he's protecting his OC. He might have said "throw it".......but he didn't call for the slant, that was all Bevell.

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Telling Bevell to "throw it" is like waving red meat in front of a tiger.

Drawing on previous loss from ATL, I believe he meant what he said. He wanted to waste a play and waste time. He wasted much more than both of those things..

The only thing they wasted was the entire 40 seconds to run a play after Lynch just ran for 4 yards to the 1.

They overthought it. They thought they could catch the Pats off-guard by passing in a clear running situation. On 3rd or 4th down, the threat of a pass is much higher. So they passed on 2nd down instead.

I seriously get why they did it. But the pass play they called was the wrong one. I just do not understand why they called that pass play. A play action pass would have made the Defense key on Lynch because a run in that situation was expected. But it was clear from the moment the ball was snapped that it was a pass play so the Defense had plenty of time to read and react.

Yes, it's unfathomable there was no play-action there. Or something that lets Russell make a REAL decision, and use his skills. There was almost no decision for Russell to make, all he could do was trust the OC call.

I'm sure Russell learned a thing or two from that play that will serve him well in the future.