- Kelly O
- Only the one on the right is anywhere near sad enough.
Well, fuck. That’s about the worst loss I could have imagined to end the Insufferable Road to Rewinnining the Super Bowl. I say that in so far as no Super Bowl has had a play that swung the game as drastically away from any team’s chance of winning as that goddamn interception at the end of the game did to the Seahawks. Most impactful Super Bowl play ever, right in our goddamn faces.
And yet, 28-24 loss to the Patriots after having a brutally hard season filled with injuries and intrigue? In a vacuum, that’s so good. And yet… fuck…. I can barely type right now. Also, I’m gonna try to break this down with no film because Game Rewind is being weird right now, and at present I don’t want to try any harder to watch any of last night’s game. A friend last night suggested I just write this like we won, but I can’t. I just… I can’t. So let’s do this. Once more into the breach of game recaps:
Let’s start with the Seahawks defense, where a lot went right. Two picks. Kept Gronk to six catches for 68 yards. For a little while the pass rush got home. After a middling first quarter, Michael Bennett played two quarters of Super Bowl MVP football as the Batman to Cliff Avril’s Robin up front. The Patriots didn’t run the ball very well (read: at all). Kevin Williams was a beast inside. Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas were both effective playing through injury. I mean, things went as planned for a long time.
And then things fell apart when Avril left the game with a concussion, Patriots receiver Julian Edelman didn’t, and Tom Brady went 13-15 down the stretch with two touchdowns. An injury to Jeremy Lane meant that some underneath routes were consistently open. Also, Rob Gronkowski got one-on-one against K.J. Wright twice and you’ll never believe what happened next. Also, New England went 8-14 on third down… they kept getting just enough to keep drives alive.
But the Seahawks’ offense also did a lot of things right. Marshawn Lynch had 133 total yards and a touchdown. Chris Matthews was the receiver we needed, out of nowhere, amassing 109 yards through the air. The offensive line kept Wilson from taking too much pressure, while also letting him get outside some. The non-Matthews portion of our receiving corps left much to be desired, but things went pretty okay.
Also, things went badly for the offense. 3-10 on third down. Jermaine Kearse drops abound. Luke Willson uninvolved. Doug Badwin marooned on Revis Island. A bunch of weird non-calls. It was a weird good game for the Seahawks, about what you’d expect against a team of the Patriots’ caliber.
Also, special teams had no impact save for maybe a couple weak Jon Ryan punts at the start, a problem he later sorted out. Also, the halftime show was bananas great, and if you don’t think so, you’re bananas. YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS BANANAS.
All of which is to say, this was an even game. Both teams and Katy Perry did what they wanted for large swaths of time, and also saw the other team and Katy Perry do the same for other large swaths of time. The game was going to come down to who made a play. And the Seahawks made it with Kearse channeling his inner Antonio Freeman and putting his team on the five with a miracle grab with a minute left, down four.
And then we lost.
We fucking lost.
I’m not going to say the pass that was intercepted was the worst play call of all time. It wasn’t. It just wasn’t. You want a run there? Fine, but the Pats had the personnel on the field they used to shut down Lynch going for it on third and one in the third quarter. Also, Lynch fumbled on 4th and 1 against the Niners in last year’s NFC Championship Game. Probably the right call, but not a sure thing. You want Russell rolling into the flat? That’s the two-point conversion play from last week that blew up against the Packers and required Wilson to throw 20 yards against his body to convert. You want a zone-read? Yeah, me too, but remember that’s what worked against the Pack on third down last week, so A) the Pats were looking for it, and B) the Hawks were probably about to use it assuming they… fuck… had another play. You want a fullback dive? We don’t have a good fullback. You want something else? You got something else. Fuck.
Also, you know how many passes from the one yard line resulted in picks this year? None before last night. Runners end up fumbling there historically as often as passes get picked off. It’s all meaningless. It shouldn’t have ended like that.
That interception was just tragedy. That’s all it was. Senseless tragedy. The Seahawks had an 88 percent chance to win that game when they snapped the ball, and a zero percent chance after. Take a deck of cards. Flip one off the top. Is it a red facecard? Then we lose. That’s what happened last night. Red facecard. Jack of Diamonds was three straight Lynch run stuffs. King of Hearts was pick on second down slant throw. Either way, we lost the Super Bowl.
And that’s also why it hurts.
We lost the Super Bowl.
All year we were on the Inusfferable Road to Rewinnining the Super Bowl together, and now we aren’t. Next year we’ll be on a road, but it will be different, and who knows what the fallout from all this looks like. Richard Sherman needs Tommy John surgery. He should be back by the start of next year, but whoa. Earl Thomas also needs surgery. Will Marshawn re-sign after not getting the ball? Will the offensive coordinator be fired as a scapegoat, and if so, will Russell be as good with a new OC? Will Paul Richardson be back? Can we find a goddamn receiver? We have the pieces, so can we stay on top, or is this the start of a fade? That’s the Quasi-Sufferable Road to Redemption, and I’m not quite ready for it.
So one last moment of insufferableness. This year was crazy fun. And, as I mentioned in my preview, this year’s team was this city. And yeah, this city loses in the end and then it starts pouring. But we also won the year before, and as the good memories from this year are now maybe a little covered in taint sweat, last year doesn’t go anywhere. It’s pretty goddamn cool.
Also, let me say personally, it’s been exceptionally fun to write about it here. I’m going to keep Slogging out sports posts going forward. I hope ya’ll are ready for US Open of Golf: Tacoma Style coverage in June (seriously, the biggest golf tournament in the world is happening in fucking Tacoma this June)… and also the Mariners and Sounders or whatever.
Finally, fuck. Fuck. Fuck.