The decision to throw from the 1-yard line instead of feeding Marshawn Lynch has been called the worst call in Super Bowl history. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll isn't willing to go that far, offering up this semantical parsing of the play call that led to The Interception.
”It was the worst result of a call ever,” Carroll told The Today Show's Matt Lauer on Thursday morning. “The call would have been a great one if we catch it. It would have been just fine, and nobody would have thought twice about it.”
And that's the thing: No one would remember that play if Ricardo Lockette had beaten Malcolm Butler to the ball and scored. Or, hell, even if then ball fell incomplete and Lynch scored a play later. After all, there hadn't been one interception all season from the 1-yard line.
Carroll said that he discussed those final, fateful moments with this team during a weekly “Tell The Truth Monday” meeting.
“I wanted to make sure that they went through the whole process of what happened at the end -- went through the whole thinking and everything and reminded them how we had prepared, and how we’ve done things,” the coach said. “So they realize that whether or not — even the players [who] want to agree -- know that this is the way we have practiced and prepared ourselves to execute in this moment.”
Carroll concedes that he's cried in the days since the game.
"There was a break where I allowed all of the rush of it to hit, and really in essence just sharing the energy of what everyone else is feeling," he said, before adding that he's mostly been focused on moving on from an incredibly difficult situation.
"Immediately, I mean within the instant of the turnover, the gravity of what just happened I understood, and there's only a second or two before you stand up and start looking ahead and getting ready for what's coming," he said. "I had to get myself in the right place so I could do a really good job for everybody."
Carroll's also convinced the Seahawks will rebound from the loss.
“I’m a really optimistic, positive person that thinks the next thing that’s going to come up is going to be a good thing, and it doesn’t really matter what situation I’m in,” he said. “It’s just kind of the way that I’m wired.”
We talked about those final, fateful moments in the latest Eye on Football Podcast, embedded below (you can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes right here).
