The Seahawks had the ball on the Patriots’ 1-yard-line with less than a minute to play in the Super Bowl and they needed a touchdown to win the game.
Just about everyone watching the game expected to see the Seahawks hand the ball to running back Marshawn Lynch. In a decision that will life in the nightmares of Seahawks fans for a long, long time, Seattle put the ball in the air and Patirots rookie Malcolm Butler picked off a pass intended for Ricardo Lockette to slam the door on Seattle’s hopes of repeating.
It’s a call that was questioned immediately by just about everyone watching the game and was a question from Dan Patrick of NBC Sports for Bill Belichick after the game.
“They’re goal-line plays. That didn’t surprise me,” Belichick said. “They do a lot of things down there. We had to be ready for everything.”
The Patriots were ready for what the Seahawks threw their way in the entire fourth quarter as they erased a 10-point deficit, but no singular moment will loom larger than the play Butler made to seal the victory.