2. Super Bowl XLIX – Patriots 28-24 Seahawks
Everyone remembers how this game ends, but Super Bowl XLIX was one of the best football matches we’ve ever seen.
The betting market saw this game as a straight-up pick ‘em. No favourites. Just two elite football teams.
The New England Patriots represented the dynasty who owned the Super Bowl the early 2000’s and who had been dominant since but couldn’t replicate the ultimate success since 2004, and the Seattle Seahawks were the new kids on the block. With Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch on offense, and their terrifying defense, featuring ‘the Legion of Boom’, the Seahawks were a force to be reckoned with in the early 2010’s.
Seattle won the previous year in a 43-8 demolition job, one of the biggest blowouts in playoff history, against the Broncos in SB XLVIII. Both teams wanted to assert themselves – the Pats as a dynasty that wasn’t over, and the Seahawks as a dynasty that was just getting started. Both teams went 12-4 and both secured the number one seeds in their respective conferences.
The first quarter was scoreless but it wasn’t without drama. On one of the first drives in the game, the Patriots made it down to the 10 and seemed destined to open the scoring, but Tom Brady threw an interception to Jeremy Lane and the game remained scoreless.
The second quarter started quickly, though, when Brady found Brandon LaFell for a touchdown on the first drive of the period. The score remained 7-0 for a while and the Seattle offense didn’t appear to be clicking, but then it turned around as halftime approached.
Russell Wilson got his eye in with his first completion of the game, followed two plays later by a 44-yard completion to Chris Matthews which suddenly put them in the redzone for the first time, and leading to a Marshawn ‘Beast Mode’ Lynch touchdown from 3 yards out.
There was just 2:16 left until the end of the first half when Lynch scored but somehow there was still plenty of action. Brady orchestrated a two-minute drill to near-perfection and Robert Gronkowski scored on Brady’s fifth completion in six attempts. The TD put them up 14-7 and left just 31 seconds on the clock. That’s plenty, though.
They tested the waters with a rushing attempt at first and got a 19-yard gain from Robert Turbin, which urged them to play for some points. Russell Wilson then went back-to-back with a big scramble and then a completion to wideout Ricardo Lockette that also had a penalty added on top. All of a sudden, they were down to the Pats 11-yard line with six seconds left in the second quarter. Pete Carroll decided to be aggressive and kept the offense out there to try and score a touchdown. Wilson made a pretty pass high above Matthews for a TD and the gamble paid off. Tying the game.
As halftime passed – aided by Katy Perry and an incredibly talented dancer in a shark costume – the game was locked up at 14 points apiece. When they returned to the field, Seattle were out for blood, and they looked like the better team in the third quarter, with a perfect start.
Six years ago, Malcolm Butler sealed Super Bowl XLIX with a goal-line interception 👀
(via @nflthrowback)pic.twitter.com/FLcCBUB1hl
— ESPN (@espn) February 1, 2021
They drove 72 yards on their first second-half drive and scored a field goal, and then just minutes later, Bobby Wagner intercepted Brady to give the ball right back. Unfortunately, star edge rusher Cliff Avril got knocked out of the game and weakened their pass rush from that play on. The following drive was another clinical one from Seattle, and they moved down the field with ease, before catching New England out with a clean play action fake, for a wide-open Doug Baldwin touchdown.
Through three drives and the majority of the third quarter, the score was now 24-14, and the Seahawks had control. The game stayed this way for the rest of the third, and the Patriots had to defy history to make it work – no team had ever come back to win a Super Bowl after entering the fourth-quarter by more than a single touchdown.
The fourth quarter started by continuing a streak of incredibly unproductive drives – after Baldwin scored, four straight ended within four plays – but then a switch was turned on in Tom Brady and the game completely shifted.
He was sacked for an 8-yard loss and it seemed to irritate him just enough to turn him into the comeback king that we now know him to be. He responded by passing his way down the field, throwing for 66 of the total 68 yards of this drive, and finishing with a strike to Danny Amendola that made it 21-24. After another three-and-out from Seattle their fate seemed to be sealed. Brady took to the field again after just 2 minutes, and drove for another 64 yards, again only handing off the ball twice. This time the killer blow went to Julian Edelman who found some space on a whip route which completely spun cornerback Tharold Simon around. 28-24. Just like that, the game was flipped on its head. But it wasn’t over.
Down four points, the Seahawks offense had one last opportunity. One more attempt to make it to the endzone. The first play was a huge 31-yard completion to Marshawn Lynch out of the backfield. Next Wilson hit Lockette for another 11-yard completion that landed them on the New England 38.
The play that followed would be one of the most iconic in history if this game ended differently, as Wilson fired a fade ball to wide receiver Jermaine Kearse. He ran a wheel route from the slot and faded to the sideline, but as he went up for the catch, rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler broke the ball up and knocked it away from him.
However, in an unbelievable fashion, the ball bobbled and bounced off of Kearse’s own leg and popped up above him as he laid on the ground. He reached up and caught the ball with a circus catch. That play got them all the way down to the 5-yard line.
Out of absolutely nowhere, the Patriots were the ones on the back foot.
Five yards to go and the best running back in the NFL on your team. Speaking of which, the next play was a rush by Lynch, who ran for 4 yards before being tackled just a foot from the endzone.
The clock was running down but the Seahawks found themselves just over a yard from victory with 26 seconds and a timeout remaining.
Everybody on the planet knew what they were going to do next. Except they didn’t. They tried to pass the ball on a pick concept, where Kearse sets a basketball style screen and then Ricardo Lockette runs a one-step slant underneath to score. However, in the best defensive play the Super Bowl has ever seen, the rookie cornerback who got beaten by the miraculous catch moments ago, broke in front of Lockette and intercepted the ball.
Not only did the Seahawks surprise everybody with the play call, Malcolm Butler became a household name instantaneously, and the New England Patriots reignited their dynasty. The final score was 28-24. An unheard of fourth-quarter comeback and the most notorious playcalling decision in the history of the sport – and then, of course, the incredible defensive play that followed – cemented this as one of the best Super Bowls ever played.
