Many continue to condemn Seattle's decision to throw on second-and-goal from the one-yard line with seconds to go in the Super Bowl. That was the Diehard's knee-jerk reaction, too.
But in retrospect, it was a defensible play call. Throwing at least once made sense in terms of clock management; you probably couldn't hand off three times in a row with only twenty seconds remaining.
Moreover, throwing on second down certainly maximizes the element of surprise.
I even defend Russell Wilson's decision to throw the pass. Ricardo Lockette got about as open as a wideout can get on a goal-line slant route. Lockette is a powerful receiver with decent hands; all things being equal, he should have been able to dominate the space and catch the ball.
If DangeRuss had thrown the ball a few inches farther to the right, then it would have been a Seahawks touchdown or an incompletion.
But the real problem was that the Patriots defender sold out and jumped the route. Rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler guessed correctly that Lockette was running a slant, and he won big on that high-stakes bet.
If Seattle had called a different route for Lockette--faking an inside slant and then veering back toward the outside corner of the end zone, for example--then instead of intercepting the ball, Butler would have been the goat who bit on the fake and let Lockette get wide open for the winning touchdown.
The notion that Seattle called a pass to deprive Marshawn Lynch of the winning touchdown is absurd.
The fact is that Super Bowl XLIX was a close and hard-fought contest, easily one of the most epic championship games in NFL history.
It is unfortunate that Seattle wound up on the losing side, and infuriating that it came at the hands of Bill Belicheat, Tom Shady and the Deflatriots.
If Seattle's secondary had been healthy, the game wouldn't have been close.
Despite an elbow injury, Richard Sherman played as well as ever. However, Kam Chancellor's torn MCL clearly slowed him and prevented him from dishing out normal doses of punishment to break the will of our opponents. Recovering from a dislocated shoulder made Earl Thomas mortal, too.
Even then, if Jeremy Lane hadn't suffered a freakish compound arm fracture during his interception return, Seattle still wins.
When I was poring over Seattle's inactives before the game, I remember thinking, "Why did they deactivate Marcus Burley? The Patriots are sure to throw a lot to exploit injuries to the Legion of Boom and expose our difficulty stopping tight ends and slot receivers. I think we need Burley covering slot receivers more than we need Christine Michael as a third-string running back."
