Seahawks coach Pete Carroll did what he had to do, even if it wasn’t necessarily the truth.
Carroll took the blame for the disastrous game-losing decision to pass at the goal line, which cost his team a chance to win the Super Bowl. Instead, quarterback Russell Wilson threw an interception to Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler, giving away a chance to win the game with 20 seconds left.
Carroll said after the game that since they had three receivers on the field, he didn’t want to take the chance to run it against the Patriots’ goal-line defense.
And that’s fine, and reasonable, except for a few things, namely, the timeout in their pocket and the Marshawn Lynch in the backfield.
Carroll was likely just jumping on the grenade for offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell, though he insisted it was on him.
But the questioning of the play-calling from within was immediate.
Cornerback Tharold Simon summed it up succinctly, saying: “How do you throw the ball when you got Marshawn Lynch?,” via Josh Katzenstein of the Detroit News.
That’s a question that will haunt Carroll, Wilson, Bevell and Seahawks fans for years.