Jeesh, what is with all these people criticizing the play call of Pete Carroll? (Carroll is objectionable in many ways, but not on this one.) It was a perfectly logical call. It was second down. Seattle had one timeout left. There were 26 seconds remaining — enough time, obviously, for three plays, if the clock stopped after each play. Three chances at the end zone is better than two. The call is clear: Call a pass, with the QB instructed that if nobody is open, he should throw it away for an incompletion, thus stopping the clock and allowing plenty of time for two more plays (with the timeout in hand to stop the clock between them). If they had run and missed, then they would have been forced to burn their final timeout — and, with it, the option of running on the following play unless they were willing for that following play to be the last play if they failed.
Combine that with the fact that the Pats had “run defense” personnel in, and backups rather than starters playing in the secondary, and it makes absolutely perfect sense to try a pass.
Again, it’s simple: Three chances to score, with a full panoply of play-calling options for each, are better than two.
If the Pats’ defender had not made a remarkably superb play on the ball, one he had not shown the ability to make all year, then the worst that was likely to happen was that the Seahawks would have had the ball still on the one yard line, with the clock stopped, with about 19 seconds left, and still with the ability to hand off to Marshawn Lynch while still having another play after the handoff if the handoff didn’t work.
Oh, and one other thing: Stats from the entire NFL season show that passing plays from the one-yard line succeeded at producing touchdowns at a significantly higher percentage than did running plays.
I’m all for second-guessing play calls. But don’t do it based on the result of the play; do it based on the logic of the situation. Even Beast Mode fails sometimes, especially with defensive personnel best suited to stop it and with that same personnel presumably expecting the run rather than the pass. And if Beast Mode had indeed failed, and Seattle been forced to call its final timeout, well, all the second-guessers would have been calling for Pete Carroll’s head for poor clock management.
Gimme a break.