In February 2015, the Seattle Seahawks literally came up one yard short from winning their second championship in a row. Their Super Bowl 49 bout against the New England Patriots was a heavy-weight fight for the ages: a back-and-forth that saw the Patriots come back from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to take a 28-24 lead into the final two minutes of the game. The Seahawks fought back, however, to set up one of the wildest finishes the NFL has ever seen.
First, there was Jermaine Kearse’s circus catch to give his team a first-and-goal at the Patriots 5-yard line. On the very next play, Marshawn Lynch burst through the line but was stopped just short of the goal line by Dont’a Hightower. One play later, and with the clock ticking down, undrafted rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler made a play for the ages: with just 23 seconds remaining, he undercut a pass from quarterback Russell Wilson to effectively end the game and seal one of the most heartbreaking losses in league history.
That heartbreak can still be felt in Seattle as a recent interview by NFL Network’s Michael Silver with Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll shows. Carroll was asked about getting over that gut-wrenching loss, and he said the following about it:
It was such an emotional way to lose for everybody, and we had to rebuild everybody’s brain. We just bludgeoned our way through that. I tried to just make sure that I was unwavering. So, that was the challenge: to allow for the grieving and all of that, and then see what the issues were, and then put it back together. Yeah, that was hard. It was a hard challenge. It was really hard on some players. And some of us will never get over it.
The Patriots and Seahawks have remained among the NFL’s premier franchises since Malcolm Butler ended any and all debates about the possible creation of a Seattle dynasty, but only one has actually returned to the Super Bowl since that fateful day: while New England has won two more titles in three attempts, the Seahawks have not advanced past the divisional playoff round over the last five years.