Not that the Seahawks don’t have bigger problems, but they left Miami last night seething over a penalty they felt was unfairly called.
Seahawks safety Earl Thomas was flagged for roughing the passer, after catching Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill with his arm as he flew past. The penalty negated an interception by Seahawks Bobby Wagner, and the Dolphins scored a touchdown on the next play.
“It just looked wrong,” Seattle coach Pete Carroll said, via Danny O’Neil of the Seattle Times. “A very big call to make when the guy wasn’t intending to hit the quarterback or anything like that.”
Tannehill was scrambling when Thomas came flying in from the side, with the safety thinking he was going to bat down the pass.
“I definitely felt the ball was still in his hands,” Thomas said. “And I even tried to turn my body kind of over not to even land on him. But when I’m going at my speed, I can’t just stop in mid-air, just magic. It’s just very frustrating, and that definitely changed the game. We had an interception on that play that they definitely can’t slow the game down like this for us and take the game away like that from us. It really just hurts. You can’t do nothing about it. It’s out of our control.”
Thomas clearly felt like the Seahawks got the short end of several calls, but that one was most costly.
“They’re just trying to slow this game up for certain people,” Thomas said. “I can’t fly. I’m not Superman. I did everything possible to try and not rough the passer. But if I had to do it again, I’d do the same thing. But this NFL, they need some goggles or something. That’s how I see it.”
For his part, Tannehill saw it as divine intervention.
“Just a bad, bad play by me,” Tannehill said, via Greg Cote of the Miami Herald. “The Good Lord was looking out for me.”
Maybe he was using the same goggles that allowed him to see the sprinkler button.