New England Patriots, 28 Seattle Seahawks, 24
15 years after Kevin Dyson of the Tennessee Titans desperately stretched out towards the goal line in vain, we have another Super Bowl that ends at the 1 yard line. After a floating, circus catch by Jermaine Kearse to the 5 yard line, and a solid 1st down run by Marshawn Lynch to the 1 yard line, the Patriots were looking down the same heartbreaking barrel that they had in 2007 and 2011.
However, everything changed in an instant on 2nd-and-goal.
Russell Wilson dropped back to pass, Special Teams Ace Ricardo Lockette cut in lazily on a slant. Patriots DBs Brandon Browner and Malcom Butler were prepared and aware (in tape review you can see them telling each other what was coming). Browner jammed Kearse at the line, leaving room for Butler to bolt to the ball in front of Lockette and hold on for a great catch. The West Coast Seattle ready to jump for joy, fell to their knees. The East Coast Boston sitting watching their nightmare replay, jumped to their feet. America was stunned, the Super Bowl was over.
The football field-to-popular opinion translator will forever ring "why didn't the Seahawks run the ball?" But what it should actually ring is "how gutsy was Bill Bellicheck to call Pete Carroll's bluff?" The key to this sequence was that Bellicheck did not call a timeout after Lynch's run. Kearse's catch to the 5 happened at the 1:14 mark, Lynch's run at 1:06. The Seahawks ran to the line with a slant play to Lockette but any other opposing coach- especially in the Super Bowl- would have accepted the likelihood of a coming touchdown, and called a timeout to preserve an opportunity for Tom Brady drive for a FG. Instead, Belicheck let the Seahawks run down half of the precious final minute and snap the ball at 0:26. If Butler doesn't intercept the ball- the Seahawks have two more chances to score as time winds down and there will be no time for a Brady drive.
So why did Belicheck let the time roll down? Did he know the play as Browner and Butler did? The personnel grouping was not in the Patriots' favor, both Patriots' star secondary players, Revis and McCourty, were on the opposite side of the field. It's an amazing decision that should live on in infamy even more than "The Seahakws should have ran the ball". The Seahawks did not expect to be milking the penultimate 30 seconds of the game, and running that 2nd down play at all. They never expected a perfect jam by Browner, or a perfect telegraphing run into a clutch catch by 3rd DB Malcom Butler. This is why the Patriots' won the Super Bowl.
The ending is undeniably memorable but the whole game was a battle of two well-oiled machines. There were dramatic shifts in momentum after the 1st quarter ended in a 0-0 tie. A stale-mate that was preserved by a CB Jeremy Lane red zone interception of QB Tom Brady. However, the Seahawks were forced to punt, and Brady drove the field again this time to hit WR Brandon Lafell and take the first lead.
The Seahawks took time to respond but eventually, with 2:22 left in the half, Marshawn Lynch tied the game 7-7.
Yet the half ended 14-14 because the Patriots impressively marched down the field (9 plays in a minute and a half) culminating in a perfect 22-yard corner TD to TE Rob Gronkowski with 0:36 remaining. The tempo ante'd up, it was now Seattle who responded aggressively driving the field in those 36 seconds- a 19 yard run by RB Robert Turbin, 17 yard run by Wilson, face mask penalty and an 11 yard touchdown to WR Chris Matthews, an unlikely Seattle hero who finished the day with 5 catches for 109 yards. The only 5 catches so far of his NFL career. I contend the final two minutes of this half are some of the best offensive drives I have ever seen.
In the 2nd half the Seahawks took over. They took the lead on the opening drive with a field goal, LB Bobby Wagner then intercepted an attempted Brady-to-Gronkowski connection, and the Seahawks converted the turnover for a TD to WR Doug Baldwin. 24-14 with 5:00 minutes in 3rd quarter, the Patriots had to respond in championship fashion, and they did.
The 4th quarter of Super Bowl 49 belonged to QB Tom Brady. The Butler play will always be remembered as the reason the Patriots were able to preserve their lead but how did they get that lead? It was no sure thing. CB Richard Sherman, S Earl Thomas and S Kam Chancellor were all significantly injured but still playing. The truth is that the Seahawks Defense was worn down for the first time in a few years by the efficiency and calculated calm of Tom Brady's two long 4th Quarter Touchdown Drives, a 10-play drive capped by a 4 yard TD to WR Danny Amendola and a 12-play ending with a 3 yard TD to WR Julian Edelman with 2:06 remaining in the game. It was from this point that Russell Wilson and the Seahawks changed the momentum yet again, drove the ball to the one yard line in 60 seconds, Belicheck boldly let another 30 seconds milk off, and Butler made history.
KEY PLAY: I am going to go out on a limb and say the key play was CB Malcom Butler intercepting QB Russell Wilson on the 1-yard line to end the Super Bowl.
MVP: QB Tom Brady won MVP as his 4th quarter mastery deserved. Brady is uncharted territory now, as he joins Montana and Bradshaw as QBs to win four Super Bowls. But he's also been to two more and the 4th Super Bowl comes a decade after the 3rd. This would be like Bradshaw and the Steel Curtain Steelers sustaining into the 1980s to take one from the 1985 Bears, or Lawrence Taylor Giants- or if Montana and Walsh had stayed around into the 1990s rather than turning the 49ers over to Seifert and Young. Tom Brady and Bill Belicheck have been to 6 Super Bowls in 14 Seasons, with 4 rings to show for it.
