The Most Impactful Play in NFL History

Ten years later. And (maybe) finally not "too soon" for Seahawks fans.

Let me take you back, ten years to the day.

We had several families over to watch the Super Bowl. Our Seahawks seemed a team of destiny, whereas the New England Patriots were a team the ropes, embroiled in the “deflate gate” scandal. Seattle’s collection of scrappy underdogs, cast-offs, and angry, undrafted free agents was somehow the favorite to win their second consecutive NFL championship. Beating the Patriots, the dynasty from the prior decade, seemed like the inevitable passing of the torch. Spirits were high.

The ‘Hawks dropped behind at beginning, but they stormed back with 17 unanswered points. They held a 10-point lead going into the 4th quarter. But there were cracks in the Seahawks vaunted defense, and Tom Brady was prizing them wider.

The first blow came early, but the damage took time to manifest. Jeremy Lane had intercepted Tom Brady midway through the first quarter, but in the ensuing return he managed to both break his arm and tear his ACL. This thrust first year pro Tharold Simon into the lineup, and he drew the unenviable task of stopping the Tom Brady-to-Julian Edelman connection. To put it kindly, he struggled.

But you can’t complete passes if you don’t have time to throw them, and Seattle’s defensive line was seeing to it that Brady stayed uncomfortable. Through three quarters, Brady had passed for 204 yards on 24-35, with two TDs and two interceptions—not horrible, but below his usual standards. Then the other major injury hit. Cliff Avril was forced to leave with a concussion late in the third quarter. After his exit, the Pats controlled the line of scrimmage, and Brady went 13-15 for another 124 yards and 2 TDs. New England stormed back. Brady hit Edelman for a second 4th-quarter touchdown with 2:02 remaining. After the ensuing kickoff, the Patriots held a 4-point lead, and Seattle had the ball on its 20 for what was likely a final chance.

But Seattle had already seen a postseason of miracles. Perhaps Russell Wilson had one more bit of magic yet to unleash?

The drive opened with a completion to Lynch for 31. A few plays later, Wilson hit a 3rd down conversion to Lockette. And then, on the Greatest Play That is Never Mentioned, Jermaine Kearse made a juggling, off-the-leg, on-his-back catch to get Seattle all the way to the New England 5-yard line with only 1:06 to play. After a time out, a run by the near-unstoppable Marshawn Lynch took the ball to the New England one. A touchdown seemed inevitable. Win probability models would place the chances of Seattle to emerge with the victory in the 87-95% range. And we all know what happened next.

The clock continued to tick down. Seattle had two timeouts left, but Coach Pete Carroll chose not to use them. New England had two as well. Conventional wisdom was clear: Patriots coach Bill Belichick should use them now, saving time for Brady to lead a possible response drive in the event the Seahawks scored. While he would later offer at best a cryptic explanation, at the time, it struck many as a colossal mistake. Belichick was placing all of his hopes on his defense.

After what seemed an eternity, the teams lined up. The Patriots were in a pass-heavy defense, anticipating that, with only two chances to stop the clock, the Hawks would opt for a pass on second down, knowing an incompletion would stop the clock. That would mean that for the two final plays, they would have the option of either run or pass, preventing the Patriots from loading up against one or the other.

The play is etched in my memory. Everyone in our living room was standing. The seconds ticked down, taking the tension to the proverbial “eleven.” Finally, Seattle lined up. Lynch was to Wilson’s left, and Jermaine Kearse and Lockette were in a stack formation to his right. With 5 seconds left on the play clock, the ball was snapped.

It opened with Lynch heading left and Wilson faking a toss. Kearse and Lockette surged forward. Kearse engaged New England cornerback Brandon Browner while Lockette slanted inside. The Patriots other corner was Malcolm Butler. He was shielded by Browner, and he suspected from film study that Lockette would be the target. He fired his gun, taking off like a shot for the point where receiver and ball would meet.

But Wilson had spun back right after the fake to Lynch. Seahawks offensive coordinator Darell Bevell chose to use one of his best weapons, the legs of his second-year QB. Wilson sprinted to the right side of the field and open green. The mass of bodies created by Lockette and Butler impeded any pursuit from the middle of the defense by Dont’a Hightower. Wilson broke contain from the defensive edge, and he created a dilemma for Browner. Should he stick with Kearse or try to head off Wilson?

Browner choose the latter. He had the angle, and he saw he could get to Wilson before Wilson could get to the goal line. And that’s when Wilson stepped back and lofted the prettiest teardrop pass you will ever see, over the outstretched arms of the leaping Browner and into the waiting hands of Kearse, running uncovered in the right back corner. Touchdown.

Seahawks scored. With only 20 seconds left, it was the last miracle of the day. Seahawks won.

Didn’t they?

<sigh>

Okay, can I at least find some comfort that, in some alternate timeline, this is what went down?

Because everyone reading this likely knows what actually happened. Butler intercepted the slant, the Patriots knelt out the remaining time, and the rest is history. The Patriots remained a dynasty. Legacies were made and broken.

I bring this up because, while this is often discussed as a pivotal play, it doesn’t get the appreciation I believe it deserves. I think part of why Seahawks fans have been slow to move on is that there is less-than-universal acknowledgment of the impact of this play. Don’t believe me? Check out some of the lists of NFLs Greatest plays. There are times when this doesn’t make the cut, and the NFL itself only has it at number five. I may not change any minds here, but I want to make a case. I want to discuss what this actually was, the most important single play in NFL history.

And when your team is on the wrong side of the most important play in the history of that sport, it stings.

NFL Impact

This part is actually easy. It’s just math. Any list of the most impactful plays must involve the degree to which they decided a championship that year. This has nothing to do with how spectacular the athleticism or how improbably the bounce. It excludes any regular season game, and it effectively limits the candidates to plays in the Superbowl. As an example, the Music City Miracle was a wild-card game. The Immaculate Reception was spectacular, and it was hugely impactful in deciding that game, but the Steelers didn’t even make the Superbowl that year. They lost to Miami in the AFC Championship the next week. Only Super Bowl plays can be considered decisive for a season.

At the snap of the ball, the Seahawks had an estimated win probability of somewhere between 80-90%, depending on the assumptions used by various models. If we go by win probability added, this play determined 80.6 percent of the win probability, easily grading higher than any other play in super Bowl. It’s not even close, really. Second on the list is the infamous “Wide Right” miss by Scott Norwood for Buffalo against the New York Giants. That was basically a coin flip. (As a side note, Jermaine Kearse’s catch made the list at #4. More on that later.)

The Butler interception took the Seahawks win probability form something in the range of 85% to essentially 0. It decided the championship that year. Even the infamous Bill Buckner’s between-the legs grounder in the World Series only took the Red Sox from ~99% win probability for a championship to 50/50. That was just game six. There was still another game left to play. The Seahawks loss was basically Wide Right + Bill Buckner, all at the same time.

Now that the initial premise is established, I’d like to play a bit of alternate history. If my dream play had actually happened, how would that affect the legacies of the players and teams involved?

Seahawks, the Dynasty That Missed it by Thaaat Much.

The 2013 Seahawk get deserved credit for being one of the greatest NFL teams of all time, but people forget how good the early 2010’s Seahawks were and for how long. For that, I will use a reasonably objective yardstick, “Defense-adjusted Value Over Average,” aka DVOA. This is a stat that attempts to capture more than just records of teams, but also how those teams performed against the other teams that year. DVOA compares success on every single play to a league average based on situation and opponent. It doesn’t always predict the champion, but I’d argue it’s a good way to pick which team would win the most Super Bowls if you could somehow play the season a hundred times.

And the Seahawks were DVOA beasts. This run started from the second half of Russell Wilson’s rookie year in 2012, and it continued until Earl Thomas broke his tibia in 2016. The Seahawks had a “DVOA dynasty” with 4 of that decade’s ten best teams. If they had become the first team of the free agent era to win back-to-back Super Bowls, they’d be remembered differently. And who’s to stay it stops at two? Perhaps an offseason spent celebrating and talking three-peat would have been a galvanizing mission. We are left with the sense of a destiny unfullfilled.

Pete Carroll’s Hall of Fame Candidacy.

Head Coach Pete Carrol took the lion’s share of the blame for the loss, even shielding offensive coordinator Derrel Bevil from responsibility. The number of “just hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch” hot takes probably took up a measurable percentage of 2015 internet bandwidth. But here’s the thing, passing in that situation, given the time outs, was a good call. (Perhaps not that particular pass, or that pass, better executed, but still) An incomplete pass leaves two more chances with two timeouts, preserving both run and pass as an option. The fallout from that call was an albatross for years on the team. I’d argue Carroll should get credit for keeping things together for as long as he did, but the team eventually fell apart in acrimony. Despite the talent, they never got back to the NFC Championship, much less the Super Bowl

Pete Carroll is still arguably a Hall of Fame coach, but with back-to-back Super Bowls, he’d be a lock.

John Schneider doesn’t go on TILT

Tilt is a term I have mostly seen in poker discussions. It is where a player loses in a bad luck draw and then makes overly aggressive move to try to get back, causing more harm good. After historic drafts in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the 2013 draft was “meh” and the 2014 draft (and onward) was downright brutal. Facing the loss, Schneider concluded that the Seahawks needed another dynamic receiver option. That trade: pro bowl center Max Unger and a 4th round pick for Graham and a 1st, extended an unfortunate trend of Schneider not valuing 1st round picks. While many cheered the output of Graham (ok, including me) the loss of former All Pro player Unger proved huge. He missed only a single game for the Saints and still had one Pro bowl left in him. Graham played most of three seasons, missing time for injury. He was good, but he never reached the peaks he’d seem in New Orleans. In retrospect, the Seattle offensive line was never good again. And don’t get me started on the Jamaal Adams trade. Perhaps, flush with success, Schneider stands pat on the team and uses the 31st pick to build needed OL depth.

That Catch Without a Nickname

If the Seahawks had won, the circus catch by Jermaine Kearse would have been the third most important play in Super Bowl history in terms of changing win expectation. Add to this the fact that he caught the game-winner in an improbable NFC Championship, and I think he at least deserves a footnote for the history he could easily have made.

Head Coach Darrel Bevell

We try to judge process, not outcomes, but it is human nature to do the opposite. Despite what later analysis can suggest about the play call, it is hard to recover from the color commentator (and Hall of Fame receiver) Cris Collingsworth saying he “can’t believe” what just happened. If the Seahawks had converted the play, though, all would be forgiven, and it would have been “gutsy” or “genius.” As a 2-time Super Bowl-winning OC, Bevell probably gets a head coaching opportunity the next year.

Hall of Famer Russell Wilson

Perhaps his star is irrevocably tarnished by his time in Denver, but people should remember that Wilson was once considered a Hall of Fame lock. If he had completed the pass, he’d have gone 13 of 21 with 3 TDs, ending the game with a passer rating of 142, the best of the past 25 years and 4th best overall. Add another Super Bowl ring to a career that will likely end with every quarterback ahead of him in career yards also in Canton, and the case looks pretty solid that Wilson would be joining them. As of now, I’d say he is borderline. How crazy is that? There is a case to be made that a single play will be the difference in a lifetime achievement award like HOF? That’s how valuable Super Bowls are to a legacy.

Is Tom Brady the Undisputed G.O.A.T.

We are getting into a bank shot hypothetical here, but here me out. Or rather, let’s hear out Number One Patriots Fan Bill Simmons on why this was Brady’s greatest playoff performance of his career.

”Gold Medal: February 2015, New England 28, Seattle 24 — Down 10 in the fourth quarter, Brady (328 yards, four TDs, two picks) pulls off two straight scoring drives to set up New England’s fourth title (and Malcolm Butler’s miraculous interception). Additional stakes: Brady avoided three straight Super Bowl losses, grabbed GOAT status from Manning, prevented back-to-back Seattle titles, carved up one of the 21st century’s most acclaimed secondaries, and saved himself from an offseason of “Brady can’t win unless he deflates the footballs!” bullshit (remember, Deflategate had launched two weeks earlier). Oh, and he tied Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana with four rings. Other than that, no biggie.”

Take away this win, and then potentially the insanely improbable win against the Falcons doesn’t happen. There were already rumblings about Brady’s age (since put to rest). If there had been 3 or 4 straight Super Bowl losses, Brady is still a lock for Canton, but the Greatest of All Time discussion between Brady and Manning would still be a debate, and Patrick Mahomes would be much closer to making his own case.

Did Belichick “Glitch?”

Just like outcomes over process has haunted Pete Carroll, if the Seahawks had scored with 20 seconds or less left in the game, Belichick would have been roasted, regardless of how sound his explanation. Just like Brady, Bill Belichick was going to get his gold jacket someday, regardless of what happened on that Arizona field on 1 February, 2015. But in some alternate universe, where the decision didn’t work out, he’d always need to answer for The Glitch

And it would be a Patriots fan out there somewhere doomed to write this Substack.

Thanks to anyone who made it this far.

Cheers, y’all.