Wilson threw past Lockette
Maybe that is why no one has really addressed why it happened. It has not been discussed yet, as far as I know. And while ‘Hawks coach Pete Carroll, who is taking the hit for the call, admitted to Seattle media last week that he woke up at 4 a.m. on the Tuesday following the defeat weeping about it — a rare admission and to be applauded — he’s not about to talk about the primary reason it happened.
Which is this: it was a terrible pass.
A bad play call, too. But you have a reasonable expectation Russell Wilson can execute that play. But he led his receiver. Sure, you’re supposed to lead your receiver — on a 50-yard bomb. On a five-yard pass you lead your receiver like Wilson lead Ricardo Lockette and there’s no catch.
Guaranteed.
The ball was past Lockette when Malcolm Butler intercepted it. Butler made a wonderful play to anticipate and get there, and he had to bump Lockette to have the chance to catch that football, but Lockette wasn’t going to catch it regardless.
From five yards you throw to the breadbasket and your guy either catches it or it is incomplete. No DB can intercept a ball thrown from five yards away if it’s thrown at the receiver when they’re coming at it from behind that receiver, as Malcolm Butler was. From five yards you throw at the receiver he almost can’t miss. If you’re 50 yards away, 15 yards away, and you throw at your receiver it winds up behind him.
Look at the tape. If Butler doesn’t step up and make that interception what happens? Maybe Lockette tips it but he still doesn’t catch it, it was too far in front of him. And if he doesn’t tip it and Butler isn’t there that football keeps going — right into the arms of Brandon Browner, a few yards back in the end zone.
NFL rule: Don’t blame your best player
So why won’t coach Carroll, or offensive coach Darrell Bevell, talk about Wilson’s mistake? Because even more than Marshawn Lynch, Russell Wilson is the face of the Seahawks. He’s a great person, a great quarterback, and he’s the face of the franchise. You don’t throw your face of the franchise under the bus.
The only thing in defense of Wilson, other than mistakes happen (which is why you don’t call that play, far less chance of Lynch fumbling) is that as a 5’11” quarterback he was asked to stay in the pocket and make that throw. But it’s not much of a defense — he still should have made it.
After the Super Bowl Bevell suggested Lockette was to blame, he could have been more “strong” on the ball. That was nonsense. A ball ripped at your from five yards away, thrown that far ahead of you, you’ve got about as much chance to catch up to it as a condemned man has of ducking a bullet from a firing squad.
It doesn’t really matter, does it? They lost. They’ll have to get over it, regardless. It’s just that they’d prefer to get over a bad play call. Prefer to get over the folly of not giving the ball to Beast Mode. No one wants Wilson to have to spend the off-season, the rest of his career, thinking about how he threw the Superbowl away.
But he did.
