Breaking Down The Super Bowl’s Controversial Ending
Joshua Liao
It’s
the week after the Super Bowl and all anyone who watched the game can talk
about is how the game ended. Everyone has their own opinion on the Seattle Seahawks’
last play. With just 31 seconds left in the Super Bowl, the Seahawks had a
second down from the Patriots’ 1 yard line down by 4 points. They had three
tries to score a touchdown that would all but win the game for them. However,
on that fateful play, Patriots cornerback Malcom Butler stepped in front of
Seahawks receiver Riccardo Lockette, intercepted the ball, and ended the
Seahawks opportunity two chances early. Then everyone went nuts. Why, the
question became, would the Seahawks choose to put a ball in the air when they
had one of the NFL’s best running backs and the NFL’s best running quarterback?
They were one yard away with a timeout left. If they at least tried to run and
failed, they could stop the clock and try again. No one would have blamed the
coaches and the Seahawks most likely would have scored.
However, if you think
beyond the surface reasoning, it was actually a very smart and the more
reasonable decision. Everyone knew the
Seahawks were going to run the ball, including the Patriots. Before the play, they
had seven of their eleven players guarding the run, with just four defenders
guarding the pass. Two of them were playing deep so deep they couldn’t come up
and stop a one yard pass if they had to. The Seahawks figured rather than to
run at seven defenders, they should take a shot at the weakness. With two of
their own receivers essentially lined up across a single Patriot’s defender, it
should have been a walk-in touchdown. The play began and the outside of the two
Seahawks receivers ran into the single Patriots defender nearest to him,
preventing him from making a play on the inside receiver, Riccardo Lockette.
Lockette was all but ready to catch the Super-Bowl winning touchdown when
Malcom Butler came sprinting in from 5 yards deep in the end zone. Still
Lockette was in better position to catch the ball and fall into the end zone.
Butler was just too far. Then came the part that started all the controversy.
Butler ran to the ball and in the
process knocked Lockette out the path. An absolutely phenomenal football play,
something that very rarely happens. Most defenders try to ruin into the
receiver and make him drop the ball. If Butler had done that, Lockette would
have caught the ball in the end zone and won the Super Bowl. But Butler made
the best play humanly possible in his situation, something that no one could
have predicted. If the play would have worked, Pete Carroll and the rest of the
Seattle coaches would have been called geniuses. Sure the Seahawks could have
tried to run the ball, but in the mind of a coach, in the heat of a Super Bowl,
with the Patriots packed in to stop the run, a pass would have been a much more
reasonable call in that situation.
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