Bill Bellichick Baited Pete Carroll's Play-Calling Clusterfuck

That's the hypothesis at the Washington Post, a possibility that occurred to me almost immediately after the interception. Carroll must have been rushed. He must have thought he could catch the Patriots off-guard with a pass play. It's the 64 million dollar question.

See, "Bill Belichick made a sneaky-smart decision that might have contributed to fateful play call by Pete Carroll":

Pete Carroll’s confounding last-minute play call Sunday night will be dissected, debated and mocked for as long they play Super Bowls. It might have been prodded by a sneaky-brilliant decision by Bill Belichick.

With 1 minute, 6 seconds seconds left and the Seahawks down by four points, Marshawn Lynch rumbled to the 1-yard line on first down. The Patriots possessed two timeouts, and the Seahawks had one left. The clock ticked down, and at first it appeared odd for Belichick not to exhaust one of his timeouts. With the Seahawks on the doorstep, New England needed to conserve seconds for a desperation drive in response.

Belichick’s choice to not use a timeout, though, made life more difficult for the Seahawks by complicating their play-calling options. It may have even convinced them to throw their ill-fated pass on second down.

Imagine Belichick had called a timeout in hopes of saving seconds for Tom Brady. The Seahawks would have had enough time to hand off the ball three times without fear of the clock running out, particularly because they had a timeout of their own.

But with Belichick allowing the clock to tick, Seattle’s calculus became more complex, especially as they used almost the entire play clock...

Interesting.

Keep reading.

There's going to be a lot of theorizing about this, and I do mean theory. See the New York Times, "Game Theory Says Pete Carroll’s Call at Goal Line Is Defensible."