With the New England Patriots winning Super Bowl XLIX, the 2014-2015 NFL season has come to a close. In my opinion, Super Bowl XLIX did not disappoint. The Patriots won 28-24 over the Seattle Seahawks and it was a close game all the way to the end. The teams seemed evenly matched. I picked the Patriots to win before the game started, but the Seahawks should have won this game.

I believe the Seahawks lost the game for themselves. On their final offensive play of the game, the Seahawks decided to throw the ball from the one-yard line with 27 seconds left. The football was intercepted by Patriot’s rookie CB Malcolm Butler and the Patriots sealed their win. What was Seahawks Coach Pete Carroll thinking? Marshawn Lynch may be the best red zone running back in the league. They also had 3 downs left and a timeout. Time was not necessarily an issue. Why not just run the ball to Lynch and win the game? In a post game interview, a shocked Pete Carroll explained, “We were going to run the ball to win the game — just not on that play. They had sent in their goal-line people. They had guys on the line of scrimmage. So we thought we’d spread them out with three wides. … This one didn’t work out for us. In retrospect, we could have run it.”

Pete Carroll’s choice to pass the ball on the Seahawk’s final offensive play single handedly lost them Super Bowl XLIX.

Andrew Vetterlein’15