Brandon Bostick's life changed forever on this play. (Getty Images)
Brandon Bostick's life changed forever on this play. (Getty Images)

Two months ago, few people outside of his teammates knew who Brandon Bostick was. That changed late in the fourth quarter of the NFC Championship when Bostick, a backup tight end for the Packers who also played on the hands team, muffed an onside kick. The Seahawks recovered and eventually won in overtime.

(.GIF via SBNation)

Bostick went from obscurity to goat in the time it took the ball -- and the Packers' Super Bowl hopes along with it -- to slip through his hands. He was released earlier this month and has since signed with the Vikings. On Thursday, he wrote about the play that changed his life.

Bostick was supposed to block for wide receiver Jordy Nelson, who would catch any onside kick that came their way.

"We had practiced this dozens if not hundreds of times before," Bostick wrote for TheMMQB.com. "But when the ball appeared in front of me, just floating in the air, my mind went blank. I forgot everything I was supposed to do. It’s not that CenturyLink Field was too loud, or that I crumbled under the pressure of the situation. Instinct just kicked in. The ball was in front of me and I wanted to grab it. I jumped up, I reached for it … and my life changed forever."

After the game ended on an improbable Russell Wilson-to-Jermaine Kearse overtime touchdown connection, Bostick was understandably numb.

"The visiting locker room was dark and cramped, and I sat at my stall for nearly 40 minutes," Bostick wrote. "The media poured in. They asked question after question, wanting me to walk them through the play. ... I began talking and didn’t know what I was saying. I apologized. I knew I had messed up. I got on the plane in a daze.

"There have been a few deaths in my family, and when I was in high school, a favorite uncle passed away. When he died, I didn’t cry because it didn’t feel real. The night of the NFC Championship Game kind of felt like that."

Bostick continued: "I knew it was a big deal. I knew it was a key mistake that cost us a trip to the Super Bowl. But, with all due respect, I think the media kind of took it and ran with it."

It's a fair point. For what it's worth (which isn't much, we'd imagine), we never felt that Bostick's miscue was the reason the Packers lost that game. Coach Mike McCarthy's curiously conservative play-calling -- including kicking twice on the Packers' first two drives on 4th and goal from the one -- deserved much of the blame. (Not surprisingly, McCarthy had no issue with it.)

Critics also point tolinebacker Morgan Burnett going down after intercepting a Wilson pass midway through the fourth quarter. Again, we'd put McCarthy at the top of the "This is why you lost" list, well before either Bostick or Burnett.

Despite the myriad reasons the Packers, well, blew it, Bostick felt the brunt of the criticism.

"I became the singular scapegoat," he wrote. "Social media didn’t help, either. I don’t know how many death threats I received, but there have been a lot. I still haven’t read most of the messages that people sent me, but I want to so I can deal with the consequences and use it as motivation. But it is physically impossible for me to read every troll’s comment; the volume is simply too much. So their comments sit there, untouched, maybe forever."

Earnest Byner, the former Browns running back whose fumble in the 1987 AFC Championship game kept Cleveland out of the Super Bowl, called Bostick, who now says they talk several times a week. His biggest advice: "Face your mistake, don’t run from it."