Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll explained Sunday night why he decided to punt the ball back to the Green Bay Packers during their playoff game as he was getting crushed on social media for the decision.
Seattle punted the ball from their own 36-yard line with 2:41 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Seahawks had all three timeouts but were unable to stop Green Bay on two third downs. Carroll explained he didn’t like the chances that the team could’ve gotten the first down.
“We were thinking about going for it in that sequence but not at 4th-and-11,” Carroll said during the postgame press conference. “We thought our odds were so low. We had all the clock, we had the time, we had all the opportunities to stop them to get the ball back. So we didn’t want to put it all on one play. If it were 4th-and-5 or 3 — we went through the whole discussion, but it winds up being a sack, unfortunately.”
The Packers were 9-for-14 on third down during the game. If Green Bay had been stopped on the first third-down play during their final drive then the narrative may have been different.
Instead, Carroll was getting crushed on social media for his play-calling.
Pete Carroll lost Seattle this football game.
I actually hope this is a learning lesson for fans: remember when we bitched all year about Seattle’s coaching decisions? We feared it would come back to bite them. And did it.
Punted with 2 minutes to go.
Cowards.
— Evan (@EvaninSEA) January 13, 2020
Pete Carroll punted it with 2:50 left down by 5, lol pic.twitter.com/3kkx3uK0ql
— Daggerhands (@Daggerhandz) January 13, 2020
This loss is on:
1) Pete Carroll, for about 10 reasons, but most notably punting instead of letting Russ try and win the game.
2) Malik Turner, for one of the worst drops you will ever see a NFL WR make.
3) Norton for forgetting to cover Adams.
4) Tre Flowers who didn't cover— Jaspor (@AgentJaspor) January 13, 2020
Love to watch Pete Carroll punt away a team’s season
— BUM CHILLUPS (@edsbs) January 13, 2020
The Packers sealed the game thanks to a 9-yard pass from Aaron Rodgers to Jimmy Graham. The Packers move on to play the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game.
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