Keefe To The City

Feb 2, 2015

Pete Carroll Should Be Fired

Pete Carroll made the worst decision in the history of sports and he should be fired for losing Super Bowl XLIX for his play call.

Pete Carroll should be fired. That’s not me pulling a Bob Kravitz saying Robert Kraft should fire Bill Belichick because the Patriots’ footballs in the AFC Championship Game may or may not have been purposely deflated. That’s me saying the head coach of the Super Bowl XLVIII champion Seahawks and the head coach of the 2014 NFC Championship Seahawks, whose team was one yard away from being the first repeat champions in 10 years should be fired for exactly that: having his team one yard from being champions and blowing it.

“Blowing it” isn’t even the right term for Carroll did. Bill Buckner “blew” the play on the grounder in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Scott Norwood “blew” the kick in Super Bowl XXV. Trey Junkin “blew” the snap for the Giants against the 49ers in the 2002 playoffs. A lot of Packers “blew” the final minutes of the NFC Championship Game. Pete Carroll didn’t “blow” Super Bowl XLIX. He chose not to win it.

Of course Pete Carroll isn’t going to be fired. But he should be. He single-handedly cost the Seahawks a second straight championship, and if anyone can afford to eat a few million dollars, it’s Paul Allen.

It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that the Patriots’ won their fourth championship. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that Tom Brady has as many Super Bowl wins as Joe Montana and people honestly think Tom Brady is the best quarterback ever now. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that Darrelle Revis is now Wade Boggs. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that the Patriots’ drought is over. It’s Pete Carroll’s fault that the Seahawks didn’t cover and my picks for the season finished one game under .500.

Here are all the reasons why Pete Carroll should have ran the ball on second-and-goal from the 1:

1. Marshawn Lynch just carried the ball four yards on first-and-goal from the 5. He had 102 yards on 24 carries, for an average of 4.3 yards per carry. He is Marshawn Lynch. He is the best running back in the world.

That’s it. One thing. That’s all that should have gone into deciding what play to run from the 1 with 20 seconds left. And if Lynch were stopped on second down from the 1, the Seahawks still had one timeout remaining and could have used it to guarantee themselves at least one more chance for Lynch to gain one yard, or three feet, or 36 inches or 91.44 centimeters. That’s what separated the Seahawks from a second straight Super Bowl with the best running back in the world as their way to get there.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to accept Pete Carroll’s thought process for the call, but let’s look at his explanation to try and understand it.

“Let me just tell you what happened because, as you know, the game comes right down and all the things that happened before are meaningless to you now. It’s really what happened on this one sequence that we would have won the game.

“We have everything in mind, how we’re going to do it. We’re going to leave them no time, and we had our plays to do it. We sent in our personnel, they sent in goal-line (package) — it’s not the right matchup for us to run the football — so on second down we throw the ball really to kind of waste a play.

It’s not the right matchup? Let me say it again: Marshawn Lynch just carried the ball four yards on first-and-goal from the 5. He had 102 yards on 24 carries, for an average of 4.3 yards per carry. He is Marshawn Lynch. He is the best running back in the world.

If anything, it wasn’t the right matchup for the Patriots. Because the Seahawks at the goal line aren’t the right matchup for any team because they have MARSHAWN LYNCH. MARSHAWN LYNCH!

“If we score, we do. If we don’t, then we’ll run it in on third and fourth down.”

What the eff? Is that a real-life quote? So, you’re willing to run the ball on either third and fourth down against … wait for it … wait for it … wait for it … THE PATRIOTS’ GOAL-LINE DEFENSE, but you’re unwilling to run the ball against the PATRIOTS’ GOAL-LINE DEFENSE on second down? How does that make any sense? Do you think the Patriots are going to change their defense on third or fourth down from the 1? Are they going to get out of their goal-line defense at the goal line? Why are third and fourth down different from second down in this situation?

You have to love the explanation not including the whole possibility of an interception, which could happen any time the ball is thrown in the air.

“Really, (we called it) with no second thoughts or no hesitation at all. And unfortunately, with the play that we tried to execute, the guy (Butler) makes a great play and jumps in front of the route and makes an incredible play that nobody would ever think he could do. And unfortunately that changes the whole outcome.”

No second thoughts? No hesitation? The thought “Hey, we have the best running back in the world on our team and he needs to get one yard for us to win the Super Bowl” never came into your mind? The thought “The ball could get tipped at the line or deflected by someone or intercepted” never entered your head? Oh, OK.

Malcolm Butler did make a great play and it was his play that won the Patriots the Super Bowl. But Carroll should in no way be congratulating Butler or talking about how incredible of a play it was because the play was only made possible by his decision to not run the ball.

“So I told the guys in the locker room that they’re a great team and they fought to prove that, and they did everything to do that again tonight. And they’re on the precipice of winning another championship, and unfortunately, the play goes the other way. There’s really nobody to blame but me, and I told them that clearly. And I don’t want them to think anything other than that. They busted their tails and did everything they needed to do to put us in position, and unfortunately it didn’t work out. A very, very hard lesson. I hate to learn the hard way, but there’s no other way to look at it right now.”

There’s nothing like when a professional athlete or coach accepts or takes the blame or responsibility for something went wrong and then every mainstream media member or beat writer nerd calls them a class act or refers to them as a stand-up guy. Carroll should take the full blame for the Seahawks losing the Super Bowl and for handing the Patriots their fourth championship in 14 years.

And there’s no silver lining in Carroll’s decision. “Learning the hard way” isn’t a good lesson or the moral of the story. It’s a ridiculous line from a person who made the most ridiculous decision in sports history.

“Really the way the route generally works is the back receiver gets shielded off so that the play can get thrown to the guy trailing. And it’s worked really well, it’s been a nice concept, but they jumped it — did a fantastic job. I don’t know if they prepared to do that or he did it on his own, but it was a great play.”

It was a great play by Butler, only made possible by Carroll’s play call. And it was Carroll’s play call. Even if Bevell suggested the play or was the one to relay the play to Wilson, Carroll is the head coach and has the final say on any call and absolute power to veto any decision made by his coordinators.

If Lynch fails to get in the end zone on second or on third down or fourth down and never gets in the end zone or if he fumbles the ball and loses it on any of those plays, so be it. Then you can talk about the Patriots making a great play and then you can tip your hat to their effort. If you lose with your best player trying to do what he does best, so be it. Don’t lose the Super Bowl because you run a passing play to Ricardo Lockette, a receiver with 18 career regular-season receptions, at the 1-yard line. Lose because the best running back in the world couldn’t get one yard.

Blogs • Giants

Jan 30, 2015

Super Bowl XLIX Pick

The Giants aren’t in the Super Bowl to stop the Patriots, but if the Giants can’t be there, it’s a good thing the Seahawks are.

Two hundred and sixty-two games. That’s how many games are in an NFL regular season and postseaons prior to the Super Bowl and that’s how many games I have once again picked this year. When you write it out it looks like a lot more and feels like a lot more and reminds you of the 20 weeks of predicting and checking and picking and writing about lines. Two hundred and sixty-two.

After the 262 games this season, the record sits at 129-129-4. A .500 record and even winning percentage across the board after five months of football. Now there is only one game to pick, and that game has many more implications than just deciding if my record ends one game over or under .500.

***

On Feb. 3, 2008, I was in college in Boston when the New York Football Giants avenged what had happened to the Yankees (and more importantly me) four Octobers earlier. I was at a Super Bowl party where the ratio of Patriots to Giants fans was about 30-to-5. At halftime, the four other Giants fans watching the game and I went into a separate room at the party to watch the game on a smaller TV, leaving the Patriots fans in the living room with the big screen. The only time we would come in contact with each other for the second half would be when we needed to visit the keg.

With 2:42 left in the game, Tom Brady found Randy Moss in the end zone for a six-yard touchdown pass, giving the Patriots a 14-10 lead and leaving them one defensive stop from finishing off a perfect 19-0 season with the franchise’s fourth championship in seven years. Tom Brady would be 4-0 in Super Bowls, the leader of the best team ever and the best quarterback in league history. All 30 or so of those Patriots fans came barreling into the room as if there was a fire in the living room and all 30 or so of them were laughing and screaming and yelling in our faces just two minutes and 42 seconds away from perfection.

Two minutes and seven seconds later it was our turn to break up their party. Plaxico Burress embarrassed Ellis Hobbs to get open in the back corner of the end zone and Eli Manning floated a pass to Burress that seemed to hang in the air for minutes. From the second I realized how open Plaxico had gotten through the ball’s entire flight in the University of Phoenix Stadium air, I started to envision everything that had been building to this game.

The Giants’ Super Bowl loss in 2000, the Patriots three championships in four years between 2001 and 2004, Eli Manning’s rollercoaster career, the legacy of Tom Coughlin, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick’s place in history, Michael Strahan coming back for one final year, my hatred for the Patriots and Boston sports and the New York-Boston rivalry. And that thing that happened in October 2004.

When Plaxico went down to one knee to celebrate the go-ahead touchdown with 35 seconds left, I went up to no feet to celebrate, jumping so high I probably could have dunked a basketball for the first time. The five of rushed into the other room where a dejected group of Patriots fans were slumped and slouched over looking like they had all been told their houses had been burned down and they had lost everything. Everything.

That night we headed to the bars in Faneuil Hall to celebrate a Giants victory on Patriots ground the way Red Sox fans had done in New York four Octobers earlier. I drank everything that was handed to me, sang along to every song that was played at the bar, screamed until I didn’t have a voice left to scream with, and all the while I kept watching the highlights over and over and over.

The next morning when I woke up it felt like it never happened. Were the Giants really Super Bowl champions? Did they really end the Patriots’ perfect season? I walked out of my apartment and on to Hanover Street in the North End and it looked like the beginning of I Am Legend. There was no one to be found and if you did find someone they looked like their whole life had been devastated. It was a great feeling.

Four years later, the Giants once again ruined the Patriots’ chance to win a fourth Super Bowl and for Tom Brady to join Joe Montana and Terry Bradshaw as the only quarterbacks with four Super Bowl wins and for Bill Belichick to inch a little closer to Vince Lombardi even if he can never be caught. The Giants’ incredible finish to their regular season and their improbable postseason run and how they beat the Packers and how they won the NFC Championship Game and the two weeks between that win and the Super Bowl all felt the same way it had in 2007. And when Ahmad Bradshaw found the end zone with 57 seconds left I celebrated the way I had four years earlier when Eli found Plaxico.

The Giants were nowhere to be found this postseason and the last time they played in the postseason was in Super Bowl XLVI three years ago. The Patriots, on the other hand, were back in the playoffs in 2012, losing to the Ravens in the AFC Championship, and again in 2013, losing to the Broncos in the AFC Championship. Now they’re back in the Super Bowl, which is something I didn’t have to worry about the last two seasons. Except this time Eli Manning and Tom Coughlin aren’t there to stop Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and tput another dent in their legacies.

But if the Giants can’t be there to do to the Patriots what no other team in the league has been consistently able to do during the Brady-Belichick era, then I’m glad the Seahawks are there to fill in.

(Home team in caps)

SEATTLE +1 over New England

This week I wrote about being a Giants fan for the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLIX and about becoming an honorary 12th Man for Sunday and that’s exactly what I’m going to be.

Seahawks 24, Patriots 13

Last week: 1-1-0
Season: 129-129-4

NFL • Podcasts

Jan 30, 2015

Podcast: Danny Picard

Super Bowl XLIX is finally here and that means everyone can now focus on real football and an actual game rather than inflation regulations.

Super Bowl XLIX is finally here. Well, the weekend is finally here and the this weekend is centered around the game in Arizona. After two weeks of hearing about the football inflation regulations, there will actually be real football and an actual game to talk about.

Danny Picard, of DannyPicard.com and The Danny Picard Show on WEEI and Comcast SportsNet New England, joined me to talk about how Super Bowl XLIX will impact the legacy of Tom Brady and Bill Belichick, why people hate the Patriots, how the Seahawks resemble the early-2000s Patriots and who will win in Arizona.

Podcasts • Rangers

Jan 29, 2015

Podcast: Mike Carver

Another Rangers-Islanders game and another loss for the Blueshirts to keep them winless against their rival this season.

Another Rangers-Islanders game and another loss for the Rangers to drop them to 0-3 on the season against their rival. In the three games, the Rangers have been outscored 13-4 with just one goal in the last 122:10 against the Islanders. If the two teams do end up meeting in the playoffs this spring, I hope the Islanders still haven’t lost to the Rangers at that point because that would be the only way I would feel confident about the series.

Mike Carver of The Butch Goring Show on Hockey This Week Radio Network and WFAN joined me to talk about why the Islanders have owned the Rangers so far this season, the changed perception of Jack Capuano for Islanders fans and how the reality of the Nassau Coliseum closing is starting to set in.

NFL • Podcasts

Jan 28, 2015

Podcast: Mike Hurley

A lot of people don’t like Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, but even as a Giants and New York sports fan, I have never understood it.

Super Bowl XLIX is almost here and that means we can actually watch and talk about actual football rather than have to hear about deflated footballs and speculate on what might or might not happen in the game. Sunday it set up to be a great day and a memorable one for Seahawks fans and those who consider themselves a 12th Man, like myself.

Mike Hurley of CBS Boston joined me talk about what Media Day is like, why people hate Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, how to balance being a fan and a media member, the idea of the 12th Man and why the Seahawks are going to win the Super Bowl.