The knee-jerk reaction to watching the Seattle Seahawks’ last offensive play of Super Bowl XLIX is this — “What on earth were they thinking?” Why throw the ball from the 1-yard line when you have Marshawn Lynch? Perhaps the New England Patriots had a hand in that decision.
During his weekly appearance on WEEI Wednesday, Bill Belichick explained his surprising decision to not use a timeout before Malcolm Butler made the play of the year. Belichick said he considered using a timeout but decided against it when he saw Seattle’s three-wide receiver package.
“We put our goal-line defense in probably around the same time they were sending in their multiple receiver group, and that’s kind of what we wanted to be in there, to make sure they didn’t run the ball in,” he explained, as transcribed by Mike Reiss of ESPNBoston.com.
“I’d like to think had they tried to run the ball against our goal-line defense, with three receivers on the field — we couldn’t ask for any more than that in terms of trying to stop the running game. We saw that matchup and we certainly gave some consideration to taking a timeout there and leaving some time on the clock. I don’t know if that would have been a bad thing to do. It might have been a good thing to do.”
Belichick absolutely had to have been thinking the Seahawks were going to throw it. For further evidence of that, sideline footage that aired on “Inside the NFL” Tuesday night showed the Patriots’ coaches inserting Butler into the game at the last second.
Belichick’s decision to not use a timeout is a strong indication that he smelled pass. The ball was snapped with 25 seconds left in the game. If The Hoodie assumed Seattle was throwing, there was no need to use a timeout. That doesn’t mean he knew Butler would pick the pass off, but the only other scenarios (assuming no run) were a touchdown pass or an incompletion, which would stop the clock anyway.
Seattle’s biggest mistake was not calling a safer pass play. They could have thrown a fade to the corner of the end zone and had Wilson just throw it away if nothing was there. That said, you can’t underestimate the phenomenal job New England’s coaching staff did or the incredible play Butler made. There’s a reason Tom Brady wants to give this gift to the rookie.
H/T John Feitelberg
