SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 When it happened, as tens of millions of viewers let out yelps of indignation, elation or anguish, Marshawn Lynch laughed.<\/p>\n
You probably weren\u2019t aware of the mystified running back\u2019s exact reaction, but you surely know the play that provoked it. Eleven years ago, the Seattle Seahawks were on the verge of securing a second consecutive Super Bowl victory, a yard away from a triumphant touchdown that was set up to be Lynch\u2019s. Like everyone else, the powerful running back was shocked that coach Pete Carroll went with a different call: a Russell Wilson slant that was intercepted by Malcolm Butler, then a rookie cornerback for the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n
Suddenly, it was over. The Seahawks had squandered a chance to win Super Bowl XLIX and, it would turn out, a shot at creating a dynasty. As Lynch looked over to the Seattle sideline and saw the tortured look on teammate Richard Sherman\u2019s face, his own mouth dropped, and he did what came naturally.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could hear the emptiness, and I saw Sherm with a traumatic-ass face, like, \u2018What the f\u2014 just happened? Like, God, are you serious?\u2019\u201d Lynch would recall years later. \u201cAnd then at that moment, all I could do was laugh. Literally, like a dramatic-ass laugh. Mouth wide open \u2014 one of them kind of laughs.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the Seahawks and Patriots set to face off in Super Bowl LX on Sunday in Santa Clara, Calif., there has been renewed focus<\/a> on what probably ranks as the most infamous play in the Ultimate Game\u2019s six-decade history. It\u2019s a subject I\u2019ve explored in depth, beginning in the immediate aftermath \u2014 when Carroll attempted to explain his decision in a late-night text exchange<\/a> \u2014 and throughout the years that followed.<\/p>\n In 2022, Lynch and I collaborated (in conjunction with Backstage Media and Meadowlark Media) on an as-yet-unreleased documentary project, \u201cOne Yard,\u201d exploring the impact of that triggering moment. The quotes in this column are excerpts from separate on-camera interviews with Lynch, Carroll and Seahawks general manager John Schneider, each of whom conceded that the healing process following that heartbreaking defeat was long, complicated and tumultuous.<\/p>\n To Lynch, Carroll choosing to green-light offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell\u2019s play call on second-and-goal from the 1 while trailing by 4 points with 26 seconds remaining wasn\u2019t merely a perplexing move. In its aftermath, it also came to represent \u2014 for him and other players \u2014 a broken pact between the coaches and the men in uniform.<\/p>\n \u201cIt took confidence (away from) what the coaching staff and what the organization was preaching,\u201d Lynch explained. \u201c(Carroll) preaches, \u2018We\u2019re gonna run the ball down your throat,\u2019 and all that type of s\u2014 like that. I think it took a lot of respect from them, \u2019cause they weren\u2019t standing on s\u2014. They weren\u2019t \u201810 toes\u2019 on what the f\u2014 they were preaching.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynch\u2019s ferocious running style had been an essential part of the Seahawks\u2019 identity since Seattle acquired the 2007 first-round pick in a midseason trade with the Buffalo Bills in 2010, Carroll\u2019s first year as coach.<\/p>\n After an unlikely NFC West title (despite a 7-9 record), the Seahawks stunned the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints in a first-round playoff game, with Lynch\u2019s Beast Quake<\/em> run providing the signature moment. The incredible 67-yard play concluded with Lynch leaping into the end zone and \u2014 well, let\u2019s let Carroll tell it.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd Marshawn, just in classic fashion, goes in, you know, holding his Schwanz<\/em>\u00a0as he goes across the goal line.\u201d<\/p>\n By 2013 the Seahawks, with a relentless, punishing and explosive defense that mirrored Lynch\u2019s playing style, were the class of the NFL. They made it official with a 43-8 blowout of the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XLVIII.<\/p>\n The next season, the Seahawks\u2019 stirring rally in the final minutes of regulation produced an epic NFC Championship Game victory over the Green Bay Packers. After that wild comeback, Lynch was convinced a second consecutive Lombardi Trophy would be theirs for the hoisting.<\/p>\n And after Jermaine Kearse\u2019s amazing, four-bobble catch gave the Seahawks a first-and-goal at the 5 late in Super Bowl XLIX, Lynch had no doubt that he and his teammates would finish the job. He came close to doing it on the first-down carry, getting stopped just inside the 1, and was sure he\u2019d score on the next play \u2014 until the call came in.<\/p>\n Carroll had his strategic reasons for passing, given that Seattle had one timeout, didn\u2019t want to be boxed into throwing on third down and was facing a Patriots defense designed to stop a short-yardage run. Yet none of that resonated at the time.<\/p>\n \u201cYou could just see when the play call came in, motherf\u2014\u2013s are just looking around, like, \u2018What the f\u2014?\u2019\u201d Lynch said. \u201cI don\u2019t even think it really probably registered to a lot of individuals. I know for sure it didn\u2019t register to me at first, \u2019cause I think I lined up on the opposite side.\u201d<\/p>\n Butler\u2019s interception was hard to process in a locker room full of proud, headstrong players who were mystified by the fact that the ball \u2014 and Seattle\u2019s fate \u2014 hadn\u2019t been in Lynch\u2019s hands. Instead Wilson, considered a teacher\u2019s pet by many of his edgier teammates, had been asked to throw the potential game-winning pass, with disastrous results.<\/p>\n After the game, the anger was palpable. Following his initial fit of laughter, Lynch\u2019s next thought was, \u201cS\u2014, I got a bottle of Pure White Hennessy in the locker room, and it\u2019s time to go get loaded.\u201d<\/p>\n Lynch bolted early, then went on a multiday bender in Las Vegas, attempting to dull his pain.<\/p>\n When the Seahawks reconvened during the spring and summer of 2015, things weren\u2019t the same.<\/p>\n Carroll, Schneider remembered, \u201cbrought up the grieving thing himself right away. Like maybe the next day, he started talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Said Carroll: \u201cThere was a grieving, and I knew I was right in the center of everybody\u2019s grief. We were going to face it and deal with it and let people have their space to get it done. It was just hard on everybody. It took people a long time.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen does it go away? I\u2019ll let you know.\u201d<\/p>\n \n \u201cThere was a grieving, and I knew I was right in the center of everybody\u2019s grief,\u201d Pete Carroll said of a loss in Super Bowl XLIX. (Mike Ehrmann \/ Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In Lynch\u2019s eyes, it never really did. Once he and other players felt as though Carroll and his assistants had gone against what they\u2019d claimed to stand for in that pivotal moment, trust was broken and suspicions were high.<\/p>\n \u201cHell yeah, it felt different,\u201d Lynch recalled. \u201cIt felt like we had to go to work. Before, work didn\u2019t feel like work; it was basically like a hangout. (But) just like with anything, if you deal with an unsolid individual \u2014 once they show you their hand \u2014 then you deal with them accordingly. And motherf\u2014\u2013s started dealing with the motherf\u2014\u2013s accordingly.<\/p>\n \u201cThen, you know, it just became a s\u2014show. It was a friction between what the players stood on and what they saw the coaches standing on. They weren\u2019t standing on their word.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the fallout, it\u2019s not as though Carroll\u2019s Seahawks crumbled. They reached the divisional round of the 2015 playoffs and made additional postseason appearances in 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. The scars remained \u2014 Sherman, the team\u2019s star cornerback, threw a sideline tirade during a 2016 game in which the Seahawks called a passing play from the Los Angeles Rams\u2019 1-yard line, later telling reporters, \u201cYeah, I was letting (Carroll) know. We\u2019ve already seen how that goes.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet, even as Lynch, Sherman and other key players departed the organization, there was healing behind the scenes. When the Seahawks suffered a rash of injuries at running back late in the 2019 season, Schneider and Carroll turned to Lynch \u2014 who\u2019d abruptly retired after the 2015 season, returned to play for the Oakland Raiders in 2017 and retired again following the 2018 campaign \u2014 as a blast from the past<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lynch\u2019s return was full of good vibes and featured a surreal moment: With the Seahawks hosting the San Francisco 49ers in the regular-season finale \u2014 a game that decided the NFC West title and the conference\u2019s No. 1 playoff seed \u2014 Seattle was a yard away from the winning score.<\/p>\n The stadium was charged with anticipation. A euphoric and purifying celebration was there for the taking.<\/p>\n This time, Carroll had clarity and conviction: Lynch was getting the rock.<\/p>\n \u201cHeck yeah, he was,\u201d Carroll said. \u201cFor all of the reasons. He was the right guy at the right time, and it was just a moment we needed to capture.\u201d<\/p>\n Alas, a delay of game penalty derailed the plan, and Seahawks tight end Jacob Hollister was ultimately stopped inches short of the goal line.<\/p>\n Seattle also came up short in Carroll\u2019s final four seasons before he was fired by owner Jody Allen.<\/p>\n Now, in successor Mike Macdonald\u2019s second year, the Seahawks are finally back in the Super Bowl, a new team attempting to carve its own place in football history.<\/p>\n As for the team that came so close to winning back-to-back titles 11 years ago?<\/p>\n Well, in Lynch\u2019s words, the Seahawks of that era will be known as The Almost<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we could have (been a dynasty),\u201d he said, \u201cbecause our ability was probably unmatched.\u201d<\/p>\n Instead, those Seahawks will go down as the team that lost a chance to win a second consecutive championship in an excruciating manner \u2014 and couldn\u2019t recover from the resulting ramifications.<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of us winning a Super Bowl in the fashion that we did,\u201d Lynch said, \u201cI think it\u2019s always gonna be overshadowed by the Super Bowl that we lost in the fashion that we did.\u201d<\/p>\n He wasn\u2019t laughing when he said it.\n<\/p><\/div>\n The Athletic has live coverage of Seahawks vs. Patriots in Super Bowl 60. SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 When it happened, as tens of millions of viewers let out yelps of indignation, elation or anguish, Marshawn Lynch laughed. You probably weren\u2019t aware of the mystified running back\u2019s exact reaction, but you surely know the play that provoked … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19863,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/How-Marshawn-Lynch-really-felt-about-that-Super-Bowl-play.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19864,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19862\/revisions\/19864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Seahawks](\"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/GettyImages-462644602-1024x683.jpg\")
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