Super Bowl Breakdown OR How the Seahawks Whiffed

February 2, 2015

Well, well, a much better Super Bowl as compared to last year. And what an amazing final 2 minutes as the Patriots and Brady make history. And if you didn’t catch it during the game, feel free to check out Football Garbage Time’s Special Correspondent, Raghav Kohli, and his live tweets from the Super Bowl! What a terrific game.

It’s a little bit of shame, though, as the most impressive player tonight was probably Chris Mathews, who came away with his first catch of his career and his first TD of his career. He was also the one that recovered the onsides kick in the NFC Championship game against Packers. He led all receivers in the first half with 55 yards and caught the first pass of the second half as well for another 45 yards, getting to 100 before any other receiver. Who saw that coming? But alas, the most remembered player of the game might be Malcolm Butler for his literally last second interception sealing the game. Well deserved, but it’s a shame for Mathews, who could have been the subject of memes around the internet a la Tim Howard of the US soccer team after the last World Cup and “What Else Could Tim Howard Save.”

Can you imagine all the great memes we could make with “What Else Could Chris Mathews Catch”? Guess we’ll never know. Regardless, the game started off slow, but thanks to a critical INT by the Seahawks in first quarter, the Seahawks offense had time to sort things out, as Russell Wilson did not complete a pass until about 5:31 left in the second quarter. Of course after that, he proceeded to go 4 for 5 for 84 yards and a TD before the half knotting the game at 14.

Of course, the Seahawks wouldn’t even have had to pull off last second heroics in the second quarter if Chris Avril didn’t go offsides late in second quarter giving the Patriots the opportunity to score a second TD with a long pass to Gronk. Brady ended the first half with an impressive 20 of 27 for 144 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT.

In the second half, the Seahawks really started to take control with Michael Bennett being key rushing Brady. Stork was simply no match up the middle. This certainly contributed to disrupting Brady’s timing, but let’s credit Wagner for the amazingly athletic INT in the 3rd quarter as he jumped in front of Gronk’s route. This led to another Seahawks TD and put the Pats down by two scores (14 to 24).

The 4th quarter was interesting as the Patriots took only what the Seahawks gave them on defense. In particular, in the last 5 minutes, Brady took advantage of lots of screens and short outs, which helped the Patriots sustain drives and burn clock. Edelman ultimately blew away Tharold Simon (who was also beat by LaFell in the first quarter) at the 1 yard line and got the game winning TD, with exactly the same move as before when Brady overthrew him, with just over 2 minutes left.

Wilson did look like he was going to bring it home in the last two minutes, particularly with the crazy Jermaine Kearse catch after multiple deflections, including off his own leg, inside the 5 yard line. Check it out in this ridiculous video:

Watch it once. Watch it 10 times. Watch it 1,000. How Jermaine Kearse caught this ball… it doesn't make sense. http://t.co/hg7ijx4eCB

— NFL (@nfl) February 2, 2015

I’m sure the Pats had terrible flashbacks to David Tyree and the famous helmet catch after that. Beastmode took it to the half yard line and, honestly, I think everyone thought the Seahawks had it sewn up. But then in a unbelievable turn of events, Carroll decides to call an inside slant, with about 30 seconds and a timeout left, and Wilson gets picked by undrafted rookie Malcolm Butler (the same guy, by the way, that got beat by Kearse a moment earlier on the miraculous bobble catch). Come on, Seahawks. You have Marshawn Lynch on the 1 yard line and a timeout. Did you forget? Perhaps if Marshawn Lynch spoke up like he used to, he could have told the coaches that this is basically the easiest call on the planet. Heck, Lynch could have practically fallen into the endzone.

After the game, Bill Belichick said this about the interception:

“We prepare for that situation. It’s part of our goal-line package.”

So basically Bill was prepared for Pete to make a terrible call and ask Wilson to throw a slant from the half yard line while Lynch stands by? If so, he he’s way smarter than I thought.

And to cap it off, Bennett mars a good game by jumping offsides when the Patriots were on the 1 yard line, giving the Patriots 6 yards to take a knee.

Well, sorry Seahawks fans. But I seriously have to say that you only have your team to blame. As Doug Baldwin told NFL.com:

“Come on, man, you’ve got common sense, too… We have nobody to blame but us. My first thought was that we were gonna run it in — but coaches, they’re the ones that they know it better than us.”

Well, I agree with the first part at least.

And then they gave Tom Brady a Chevy Colorado for getting the Super Bowl MVP. Really? I know prop bets are now over, but I’d put the over/under on how many times Brady will drive that thing at around -1.

Anyway, congrats to the Pats for an amazing Super Bowl!