Tom Brady defends Pete Carroll on Malcolm Butler pick: ‘They couldn’t have run the ball’

Almost five years later, Tom Brady still feels like Pete Carroll made the right choice.

During his weekly WEEI interview with the Greg Hill Show on WEEI, Brady said the Seahawks had no choice but to throw at the goal line, leading to Malcolm Butler's Super Bowl-winning interception.

The Butler pick was recently named the No. 5 play of all time during a league-run poll to determine the Top 100 plays of the NFL's first 100 years.

Five Patriot plays among Top 30 on NFL list

"That to me was -- unfortunately everyone made a big deal of the play call and so forth," Brady said. "Which, the reality is, In my view, they couldn't have run the ball in that situation because of the way our defense had designed our defensive play. We forced them to throw it. And Malcolm made, I believe, one of the greatest plays in the history of the NFL. Look, No. 5 is pretty good considering 100 years of the NFL and all these plays.

"I told Malcolm that was one of the greatest defensive plays I've ever seen in my life. For him to recognize it. So few players could've made that play because of his quickness, his burst, and then his ability to attack the football. Dont'a [Hightower] made the play before that . . . and then Malcolm made that play. That was pretty crazy. I lost my mind when he made that play. That was an out of body experience."

The defensive play Brady was alluding to was the fact that the Patriots went very heavy with their personnel on that second-and-goal play from the one-yard line. They had seven front-seven players on the line of scrimmage: Rob Ninkovich, Chris Jones, Alan Branch, Silver Siliga, Vince Wilfork, Jamie Collins and Chandler Jones. Hightower was at the linebacker level behind them. And there were three corners on the field, no safeties, to match up with Seattle's three receivers.