It was Special Teams coach Brian Schneider and his staff who picked out Green Bay Packers’ reserve linebacker Brad Jones reckless aggression trying to block field goals, and so those coaches deserve the credit for crafting the base layer of the Seattle Seahawks’ NFC Championship comeback out of thin air.
But I’ll bet there wasn’t a football fan in America who watched the Seahawks, down 16-0 with time ticking away in the biggest game of their season execute a fake field goal for a touchdown and think, that was quintessential Pete Carroll.
Hold onto that play for a minute.
Seattle will play for the NFL Championship on the first 1st in Glendale, Arizona against the New England Patriots. Carroll, who was fired by New England in 1999 in his only real failure in football, will get the chance to win his second Super Bowl over his former employer.
The Seahawks’ victory over the Green Bay Packers last Sunday was as captivating as any NFL game since – more good news, Patriots fans – the David Tyree game and New York Giants Super Bowl victory over New England in 2008.
Of course Seattle was helped by the Packers taking more air out of the ball in the fourth quarter than the Patriots would take out of eleven of their balls later that night against the Indianapolis Colts, but their achievement transcended common sense and logic even before Russell Wilson hit Jerome Kearse for the game-winning score.
Seattle, on their very worst day, was good enough to play one of the best NFL games ever.
Remember Seattle’s best day? You probably stopped watching it at halftime last February.
Carroll has built a dynasty in Seattle. In today’s NFL, two-straight Super Bowls is almost unheard of. No team has repeated as champions since the Dallas Cowboys in the early 90s. It’s been more than twenty years.
But here’s the really fascinating thing – Carroll’s NFL dynasty looks remarkably similar to his USC dynasty of the 2000s.
Remember, before people were telling Chip Kelly that his offense wouldn’t work in the NFL, they were telling Carroll that his rah-rah, buddy-buddy, enthusiasm would be met with a stonewall of cynicism from experienced, jaded professionals.
Instead, Carroll almost immediately hit a nerve in Seattle.
Turns out, even pro athletes like getting treated by real people by a positive boss with boundless energy.
Carroll isn’t a master tactician. He’s a master psychologist.
That’s what makes the matchup of Carroll and Bill Belichick so interesting. It’s the machine against the humanist. They are the two most polarizing coaches in the league. One rubs people the wrong way because he’s too dour, the other because he’s having too much fun.
What makes both these coaches successful is their relentless eagerness to innovate. Neither Belichick nor Carroll wants to coach football like anyone else.
Carroll took over a Seahawks team that had a broken locker-room and a reeling sense of moral after the ill-fated Jim Mora Jr. era.
Mora carved himself out a reputation as an impossibly intense boss who threw his players under the bus time after head-scratching time.
Carroll’s plan was bold in its common sense. He wanted positive players. He wanted competitors. He wanted total buy-in.
In return, the Seahawks would be the best employers in the NFL. In a notoriously cut-throat league, Seattle has a full-time sports psychologist. They have a chef and a focus on nutrition. Meditation is mandatory. Mental health is just as important as physical health.
It makes too much sense. Take care of your players, and they will take care of you. But in the culture of football, it’s groundbreaking.
Carroll’s team had a brush with darkness early this year after a losing streak and rumors of turbulence in the locker-room. Carroll’s response was to ditch star wide receiver Percy Harvin. He couldn’t or wouldn’t stay positive.
Don’t be surprised if Marshawn Lynch is gone next year for the same reason.
Seattle has also had brushes with the law. They secondary seemed to have a weakness for Adderall that made Major League Baseball look clean by comparison. The Seahawks have been, comfortably, the most penalized team in the league the last two years.
The Seahawks survived those situations. They survived their dark stretch this year. They somehow survived Green Bay. And between their uniforms, their notorious home-field advantage, and their vibe as cutting edge has made them quite possibly the ultimate NFL team.
Seattle doesn’t just look like their having more fun than everyone else. They are having more fun than everyone else.
It starts with Carroll. You know he’s having fun. A jubilant, in-your-face, omnipresent kind of fun.
On that note, Ben Lyttleton is a British soccer writer who freelances for publications like The Guardian, Sports Illustrated, and more.
But he’s best known for this: Lyttleton can reasonably call himself the world’s leading expert on penalty kicks.
He’s the man who wrote the book Twelve Yards, turning soccer’s biggest lottery into a compact science.
One of Lyttleton’s core beliefs on penalties is this: Celebrating made shots is helpful. Important, even.
If you score, you should celebrate. Go for some high-fives. Run to your goalkeeper. Do a cartwheel. Take a selfie in the stands. Just enjoy your success, and let everyone in the stadium know you’re enjoying your success.
Celebrating is not extra. It’s imperative.
And sure enough, after Jon Ryan’s pass fell into the arms Gary Gilliam for the Seahawks’ most improbable touchdown of the year, there was Carroll running down the sideline pumping his fists and grinning from ear to ear.
Just an hour later, Seattle completed their stirring comeback to clinch their second straight Super Bowl appearance.
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