Yeah what we thought

[Maelstrom787]

I guarantee that most of this fanbase would be saying "Yeah I didn't like Bevell most of the time, but that play call to win SB49 was dope" had they gotten in on that play, which they probably do 75% of the time if we had a way to simulate that play over and over.

 

[NoGain]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know why? IT WAS INTERCEPTED! Proof! What more do you need to know.

 

[NoGain]

If there's one thing we've debated to death on this site are the strengths and weaknesses of RW as a QB. If we've learned anything from these debates is that THAT play was not a play you should call for RW based upon his strengths and weaknesses as a QB.

And guess what? He threw an interception.

 

[Maelstrom787]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know why? IT WAS INTERCEPTED! Proof! What more do you need to know.

The world is not black-and-white. It is frustratingly and unremittingly nuanced. They have a saying we're all familiar with: "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft' go awry and leave us nothing but grief and pain for promised joy."

You can play the odds well and still not succeed. It happens all the time, everywhere around us. You can go to a roulette table and put your chips on black. Some dude can come up and put his stack on 34 and 36 red. The red dude will win sometimes despite his odds being worse.

Using singular results as "proof" that a process or approach was wrong would allow anyone to say that basically every process or approach to anything in the history of mankind is wrong.

There's a lot of irrefutable facets to the situation that facilitate the basis of a reasonable defense of that playcall - but one needs to separate hindsight from the evaluation to be able to engage with that truth.

 

[Maelstrom787]

If there's one thing we've debated to death on this site are the strengths and weaknesses of RW as a QB. If we've learned anything from these debates is that THAT play was not a play you should call for RW.

I hate Russ, and I hated him before most here.

I don't think he was a problem here.

 

[strohmin]

If you're going to run a play the other team knows then make it be one that uses your teams strength, Lynch against their weakness, run defense.

Lol we could have run a play action or even just targeted doug baldwin. Baldwin didnt get even 1 target that game even though he was open alot during that game. Hell they could have even thrown it to Chris Matthews who was having thr game of his life. People can say they play call was good but the personel to run that play was the absolute worst. Pete protecting Bevell for that crap call is just as bad as if he called that play.

 

[strohmin]

You read pre snap, Browner on Kearse already ready to stuff him is an easy call, it's not after the snap, Wilson responsible for reading the defense, but that is also one of his flaws, recognition of a defense. Why Tjack was so valuable, film room education of Wilson.

I think Wilsons has trained himself to not see weaknesses in himself or any of his teammates. I really think he refused to acknowledge that Browner vs Kearse was a bad matchup.

 

[Spin Doctor]

The world is not black-and-white. It is frustratingly and unremittingly nuanced. They have a saying we're all familiar with: "The best-laid plans of mice and men oft' go awry and leave us nothing but grief and pain for promised joy."

You can play the odds well and still not succeed. It happens all the time, everywhere around us. You can go to a roulette table and put your chips on black. Some dude can come up and put his stack on 34 and 36 red. The red dude will win sometimes despite his odds being worse.

Using singular results as "proof" that a process or approach was wrong would allow anyone to say that basically every process or approach to anything in the history of mankind is wrong.

There's a lot of irrefutable facets to the situation that facilitate the basis of a reasonable defense of that playcall - but one needs to separate hindsight from the evaluation to be able to engage with that truth.

You're absolutely right when you assert the play wasn't without merit. This play is a staple in the modern NFL passing game, specifically in these situations. Seattle even called it in the correct situation. They just had a single safety up top to help and were in an 8 man box. This play was MADE for situations like this.

Conceptually this play was on solid ground. It had two problems, however. Those problems being putting our players in positions that didn't play to their strengths. The play required a three things: Kearse getting off the LOS to make a pick on the safety, Wilson having good ball placement and timing, and last but not least, the receiver to run a clean route. Lazy slants over the middle are a liability.

Those conditions are easy enough, but also didn't play to our guys strengths.

Wilson was not good at short anticipation passes, particularly over the middle. His ball placement on these types of routes is all over the place and always has been. What ended up happening? Wilson was a bit off on his placement.

We called upon our worst receiver, a guy who hadn't played much throughout the year. In addition to that, Ricardo Lockette was known for being a bad route runner. He was known more of being a special teams ace than being a receiver.

Last but not least, one of the core premises was that Kearse get a clean release on Browner. BROWNER, a guy that the Seahawks knew very well, one could say we knew him better than virtually every other team. His specialty and the main reason he stuck in the NFL was his press coverage. He was one of, if not the most physically imposing corner in the NFL.

In the end we didn't play to our teams strengths --- and that is absolutely what the top tier OC's are able to do on a regular basis. On paper this was a great idea, in reality, as we drew it up, we put our players into positions that they didn't excel at during the biggest, most crucial moment in a championship game. We didn't take our guys strengths or theirs into consideration when we called on it. Theoretically the call was great, unfortunately we didn't take a few crucial things into account.

 

[seabowl]

The DB made an incredible play. As stated many times before on this board, Lynch had not done well during the regular season on short yardage plays near the goal line. Sure the safe play call was to run the ball but certainly no guarantee. Is what it is. Again, Malcom Butler made incredible play. End of story.

 

[seabowl]

The elephant in the room that nobody talks about

If the Seahawks had scored there, the big story would’ve been why Belichick didn’t take a time out before that play. If the Seahawks had scored, Belichick would’ve left himself virtually no time on the clock to score. My opinion, that was one of the worst coaching decisions I had ever seen in a big spot and he got very, very, very lucky

 

[pittpnthrs]

Wilson was not good at short anticipation passes, particularly over the middle. His ball placement on these types of routes is all over the place and always has been. What ended up happening? Wilson was a bit off on his placement.

If you know that and I know that, how does a coaching staff that see's it everday not and call a play that requires that in a game that's for all the marbles? It was the worst play call ever for all involved.

 

[pittpnthrs]

The DB made an incredible play. As stated many times before on this board, Lynch had not done well during the regular season on short yardage plays near the goal line. Sure the safe play call was to run the ball but certainly no guarantee. Is what it is. Again, Malcom Butler made incredible play. End of story.

It was a great play, but it was made a whole lot easier when you know what's coming before the ball is even snapped. It's like cheating.

 

[pittpnthrs]

The elephant in the room that nobody talks about

If the Seahawks had scored there, the big story would’ve been why Belichick didn’t take a time out before that play. If the Seahawks had scored, Belichick would’ve left himself virtually no time on the clock to score. My opinion, that was one of the worst coaching decisions I had ever seen in a big spot and he got very, very, very lucky

Why would he have taken a timeout to allow Seattle to get their bearings and plan something? He knew the best chance that he had was to either force Carroll to call the timeout or have them panic in the situation. They panicked. It was the right move by BB.

 

[pittpnthrs]

I don't know. Thinking back on it, the play call was horrid. I know some defend it and others try to make sense of it, but I just can't. Who asks their 5'9" QB to throw a timing slant in a congested goal line? You have the baddest power back in the game who just gashed a very gassed defense for 5 yards prior in your backfield. Even if he doesn't get in, you have a timeout to use. You know the defense has a player that was just on the team last season and will recognize the play. You have the wrong personnel on the field to execute the play. Etc,,,. It just seems asinine to me.

I'll never forget watching it with my buddy and him yelling that BB didn't call a timeout and I told him "why would he" he's waiting for Carroll to screw up. I chanted over and over again,,,,"don't throw the ball,,,,don't throw the ball",,,,and he did. They got cute and sure enough,,,they screwed up. My buddy was just dumbfounded and sat there saying unbelievable over and over again. Said it was the dumbest thing he ever saw.

The only thing, and I mean only thing that gives me any solace to the whole thing is that if not for Kearse's miracle catch, the Hawks wouldn't have been in that position to start with.

What a truly horrible play call.

 

[SeaWolv]

There's 26 seconds on the clock. The check is to run it into an 8 man box and then need to burn your only timeout when you inevitably lose 2 yards.

ML gained 4 yards against an 8 man box on the 1st and goal at the 5. So why wouldn't you try it again at the 1?

Beast was killing them all night. You don't pass the ball there, you hammer that $hit in.

Woody Hayes said (yes I just threw up a little in my mouth) three things can happen when you pass the ball and two of them are bad.

 

[sutz]

 

[seabowl]

Why would he have taken a timeout to allow Seattle to get their bearings and plan something? He knew the best chance that he had was to either force Carroll to call the timeout or have them panic in the situation. They panicked. It was the right move by BB.

Because the very, very, very high likelihood is that Seattle scores a TD. By calling a timeout you are giving yourself more time when you get the ball back. Burning 35 seconds off and leaving yourself with something like 20 seconds is just plain dumb. He got very very, very lucky!

 

[Ozzy]

I think there's some nuance here.

I do blame the throw (in conjunction with other things that happened simultaneously) but I don't blame Russ for making the throw.

The throw and the placement of the throw is a part of why that interception happened, but I (as critical of Russ as I have been) can't say that he did anything wrong there. It wasn't his job nor can I realistically say that he should've altered the throw.

It's a timing play in which he needs to throw to a spot and trust the receiver to get there. He didn't realistically have time to alter that throw nor did he have any reason to from what he could see.

He needed to trust that Kearse would be able to impede Butler a bit. That's how that play works.

But, like I said - it took Kearse not impeding Butler, Lockette not flattening the route towards the middle of field, Lockette not being able to best Butler for the ball, the throw being in an optimal location and trajectory for Butler to have the easiest chance at a pick.... it took all of it. All of that. Any component of that missing = a Seahawks repeat.

It's a fair statement I just believe after watching it a ton we're judging the throw being SLIGHTLY off based on what happened prior to the throw. If Lockette or Kearse do their job even slightly better the throw is on the money in my opinion. It looks slightly off because they didn't do what they needed to do if that makes sense? I'm open to being wrong but after watching it a few times I think that throw is perfectly fine if what happened prior to it didn't happen.

So even if I concede the point and say "ok I'm wrong" and it was slightly off target I would still argue it was far and away the least egregious thing that happened on the play. I think its wild some people think the throw was the main factor in that play failing and I would argue that they're using their hatred of Wilson to cloud what really happened on that play.

Really I think you're post pretty spot on overall.

 

[Ozzy]

View attachment 67239

I'm sorry. If I'm judging this call solely on its situational merit without considering result, this was a decent call against the personnel and defensive look the Patriots had on-field.

If they still have THIS LOOK during that fateful play despite Browner apparently knowing the play... it's actually not a bad call at all. There's a reason it was successful for them, and there's a reason it's still run in the NFL to this day. The concept has merit.

This is not the worst call of all time. It's the worst cataclysm we've ever experienced as a franchise, but the causes are many and some of them are fairly blameless. It took a perfect storm.

We can beat this to death in hindsight. Sure, I'd audible out of the play too if I knew that a supremely unlikely disaster would occur during said play. Who wouldn't? At the time, though - why would anyone audible out of a play that saves your timeout and matches up well against New England's defensive look and personnel package, especially with previous little time remaining and an actively running clock?

Sometimes you have a day where you put together an effort that conceptually had nothing wrong with it, yet it rains shit on you anyway.

Sometimes you have trip aces and someone hits a flush on the river. You don't fold the trip aces because you might lose. You raised the pot because the odds were in your favor, and you were right to do so.

Seattle had that sort of thing happen on a February night in 2015. Humans have a need to blame their pain on a single offending party - it makes our pain feel legitimate. We like to feel wronged because acknowledging that the world is unfair is harder on our outlook. This, however, was a case of us making a decent bet and just... losing.

100%

 

[Shanegotyou11]

Some good takes in here.

Nobody would spike the ball there. Nobody.