Yahoo Finance Marshawn Lynch wonders if Russell Wilson should have audibled on infamous Super Bowl INT
To hear Marshawn Lynch tell it — and he tells the story well — when the infamous play call that led to an unbelievable interception at the end of Super Bowl XLIX came in, all eyes in the huddle turned to him.
His Seattle Seahawks teammates were apparently stunned that the call was anything but a handoff to Lynch on the 1-yard line.
“When they heard the call, even the receivers, all their [expletive] just was like,” Lynch said, turning his head to where he was in the huddle, “and they looked at me. I’m looking like, ‘Break, [expletive]!’ What you want me to do?”
Lynch spoke about one of the most famous plays in NFL history during a great interview with his friend, former NBA star Matt Barnes, on Barnes’ “Same Energy” show on Uninterrupted, a digital media platform for athletes created by LeBron James and his longtime business partner Maverick Carter.
[Yahoo Fantasy Football leagues are open: Sign up now for free]
Some plays and games in NFL history will always be fascinating. The call by the Seahawks to pass on the goal line, and the subsequent interception by New England Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler to win that Super Bowl, will live on forever. Lynch said there was only one reaction in the huddle when the call came in.
“Confusion,” Lynch told Barnes on Uninterrupted.
Lynch saw confusion in the huddle
Lynch had just run to the 1-yard line and was at the time the toughest running back in the league to bring down. Lynch said nobody could believe he wasn’t getting the ball again. Lynch even wonders to this day if quarterback Russell Wilson should have called an audible.
“The confusion was from everybody else in the huddle,” Lynch said on “Same Energy.”
“You know what? Realistically, even to this day, I don’t know because I took it as what it was. At the end of the day, I’m no selfish [expletive]. My whole upbringing has been to put other people in position to shine and to have success and to be great at what it is they do.
“What certain individuals was thinking at the time, like ‘Is this not the situation we need to be in? Should we change it?’ Meaning Russell. Like, ‘Should I change the situation?’ Or like, ‘Can I get it handled?’”
Lynch wonders if Wilson should have called an audible
Lynch said he never expressed doubt in the huddle because he had seen Wilson make plenty of big plays.
“At the end of the day, and I’m looking at it like I’ve seen Russell do some [expletive] that hasn’t been done before,” Lynch told Barnes. “So at the end of the day, I’m not too concerned about like, if some [expletive] can get done. Because if it’s anybody that can make some magic happen, it’s this [expletive]. Because I’ve seen him do it on many occasions before.”
Wilson couldn’t make something happen. Butler beat intended receiver Ricardo Lockette to the spot and made the greatest defensive play in NFL history.
“Then I mean, the honest to God truth, sometimes I think, ‘Do you think you should have audibled?’” Lynch said, referring to Wilson. “At the end of the day, I’m not mad at him, not mad at who called the situation or the play. But at the end of the day, I’m going to tell you like this, when that play was called and I seen the expression on the other 10 guys’ faces in there.”
That expression was confusion.
Lynch puts positive spin on Super Bowl loss
Lynch, who helped the Seahawks win a Super Bowl the season before, said he’s at peace with it all.
“What happened happened,” Lynch told Uninterrupted. “At that point in time, I can realistically say I’ve done everything in the game. To win a Super Bowl and to lose a Super Bowl, in the fashion that we did lose it in, it doesn’t get any better for a person. At the end of the day, it tests your character.”
Lynch also had some interesting things to say about coach Pete Carroll. Carroll is famously hyper, and Lynch said it caused some “turmoil” at times because he’s the type of player who just likes to handle business.
“Pete Carroll a rah-rah guy, and I’m just somebody who’s like, ‘Tell me what I need to do, where I need to do it, how I need to handle it. I’m going to get that job done but don’t give me no extra (expletive),'” Lynch said. “At the end of the day, because of how he was and how I was, we probably didn’t see eye to eye, but at the end of the day we had the same vision in mind, the goal to get to the championship. We probably didn’t agree with each other’s ethics on how to get there, but we knew that they worked.”
Super Bowl XLIX will go down as one of the greatest NFL games ever, in large part because of the personalities involved and the controversy that lives on about the key interception. It won’t be the last time Lynch will be asked to relive it.
– – – – – – –
Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
Follow @YahooSchwab
More from Yahoo Sports:
• Eric Adelson: Jason Pierre-Paul saved his career, but can he save the Bucs?
• LeBron James opens up his I Promise school with much fanfare
• Trea Turner latest player to apologize for offensive tweets as Nats investigate
• NFL reportedly tells Jerry Jones to pipe down on anthem talk
