Thank You, Pete Carroll, Thank You

The Patriots and all of New England are going to party tomorrow like it’s 1999.

Thank you, Pete Carroll, for getting fired by the Patriots after the 1999 season.

Thank you for eventually becoming the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks.

Seahawks’ head coach Pete Carroll on one of the better days of his coaching career.
Photo courtesy of USC Athletics

Thank you for overthinking the last play of the game when the entire planet, including one of the most powerful and unstoppable running backs, thought you were simply going to hand him the ball.

Hollywood could not have scripted a more blundering decision. It’s better than Booby Miles getting his ACL torn in the coaching blunder in Friday Night Lights. It was better than All the Right Moves, when Tom Cruise’s team blows it on the goal line.

Your wide receiver just made the most unlikely catch in the history of the Super Bowl. It was a game-winning, unforgettable catch. Jermaine Kearse’s catch was unforgettable simply because it is now forgotten, lost amid the confetti and Duck Boats, to be forever mentioned as the “almost was.”

The game was over, and with it, I thought, was Tom Brady’s career. Poor Tom, I thought, he had such a look of concern for most of the second half every time the camera zoomed in on his grass-stained shoulder pads. Belichik looked concerned. The Patriots on the bench looked concerned. Poor Bob Kraft looked old and tired through the foggy glare of the luxury box Plexiglass. It was a fait accompli, as they say in any of the 424 Starbucks in Seattle.

But then a funny, inexplicable, bizarre thing happened, a most glorious thing for the people in the six New England states who still don’t believe in the imaginary, ludicrous “Deflategate.” Yes, you saw it. The demographics’ map that kept flashing on TV showing that the entire Nation still believes the Patriots cheated their way into the Super Bowl.

A funny, glorious, unbelievable thing happened.

Pete Carroll’s gum got to his head. His six packs of Seahawks’ green spearmint Extra literally burrowed a hole straight through his cerebral cortex right into the core of his cerebellum.

No, his brain said, don’t give the ball to the most fierce, “Beast Mode” power running back in the game of football today. No, let’s trick the Patriots. Let’s not use all of our timeouts and four downs. No, let’s not at least try our best with Marshawn Lynch and then if it doesn’t work, tie it up with a field goal.

“LET’S PASS THE BALL ON THE ONE-YARD LINE,” Pete Carroll’s brain screamed as the spearmint seared through the earholes of his headset into his skull.

Let’s let the Patriots steal this one away from us.

After all, that’s what an interception on the one-yard line is. It’s like someone stuffing a Sony Playstation into their pants and trying to walk out. You just can’t NOT notice, but then you make it to the county line unscathed.

That’s why Malcom Butler looked like he was about to have a heart attack after he intercepted Russell Wilson’s pass. Even he couldn’t believe it. It was like being nine years old on Christmas and getting the new Schwinn, Red Ryder BB gun, seven GI Joe’s and a Rawlings Mickey Mantle glove all in one shot. He looked like a penniless, beleaguered father of seven who just found the winning Power Ball ticket.

That’s because he did find the winning Power Ball ticket and it came in the form of a Russell Wilson pass, hand-delivered on a slow-rolling, lumbering Duck Boat. Do you think Joe Montana would have overridden Pete Carroll’s play call in the huddle? Do you think Terry Bradshaw would have said “OK, coach, sure thing. We won’t give the ball to Marshawn on the one-yard line.”

We won’t be seeing Richard Sherman’s ridiculous hair-do and gangly histrionics for some time to come, thanks be to the football gods and one spearmint-snapping “boss.”

Walter Payton himself would have sawed off a foot with a dull butter knife to be handed the ball on the one-yard line with four chances to win a Super Bowl. Knute Rockne is rolling in his grave. Vince Lombardi’s ghost is shaking the goalposts as we speak in the stone-dead silence of University of Phoenix Stadium. William “The Refrigerator” Perry could have belched his way into the end zone with the ball.

Thank you Pete Carroll. Thank you.

Jermaine who?

Sports editor Sean Walsh’s column One On One appears on Capecod.com weekly. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm.