Patriots Rejoice as Seahawks Face Procession of Questions
Thousands of fans ignored freezing temperatures Wednesday in Boston and turned out to honor their belovedNew England Patriots with a championship parade. Despite two recent storms, which have buried the city under three feet of snow, thePatriots’ faithful lined a route from the Prudential Center to City Hall Plaza and cheered as amphibious trucks carrying players and coaches passed by.
After a season that seemed more like a morality play, Patriots fans were bound to see Wednesday’s celebration as a fitting metaphor for a team that weathered several storms to win the franchise’s fourth Super Bowl.
Even the timing of the parade, which was held as snow was piled six feet high in places, was a subject of intense debate. It had been delayed a day while the city dug itself out from Monday’s snowstorm, but Mayor Martin J. Walsh insisted that it go ahead as a final, full-throated send-off for the players as they headed home for the off-season.
Yet I cannot remember when an N.F.L. season ended with so many loose ends.
The former Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez is the defendant in a murder trial underway in Fall River, Mass., and the Patriots may yet have to explain how they came to use underinflated footballs in their win in the A.F.C. championship game. But that investigation seems laughable in the wake of Sunday’s Super Bowl victory.
What’s the N.F.L. going to do? Take back the Lombardi Trophy?
It probably doesn’t matter. Like New England itself each winter, the Patriots of Robert K. Kraft, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady always seem to find a way to dig themselves out.
Seattle has rebounded from losses before. In 2008, the city lost its N.B.A. franchise when the SuperSonics — then the only major Seattle team with a championship on its résumé — moved to Oklahoma City.The Seahawks face a more serious question: How can a franchise that was about to win its second straight Super Bowl, setting itself up to become the league’s next dynasty, recover from such a devastating loss?
And even before the Super Bowl, the Seahawks were preparing for the loss of their defensive coordinator, Dan Quinn, who was officially hired as the Atlanta Falcons’ new coach only hours after the game.
But now the greatest adjustment of all will have to be made by Seattle’s coach, Pete Carroll, who will have to regain his team’s trust after perhaps the most criticized end-of-game decision in Super Bowl history: the call to throw a pass from the 1-yard line rather than hand off to the dominating running back Marshawn Lynch.
Quarterback Russell Wilson could have made a safer throw, receiver Ricardo Lockette could have run a stronger route and the offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell could have suggested a surer call.
But the burden of answering for all of that falls on Carroll.
While Seahawks players have so far toed the party line and refused to criticize their coaches directly, the comments many of them offered immediately after the game almost certainly reflect what many of them still feel.
“Give it to Marshawn — that’s what I was thinking,” linebacker Bruce Irvin said. “I don’t understand how you don’t give it to the best back in the league. We were on the half-yard line, and we throw a slant. I don’t know what the offense had going on, what they saw.”
Perhaps Carroll and Bevell saw that they had, in Wilson, an elite quarterback whom they trusted to make the winning play with the championship hanging in the balance. Would anyone have doubted a pass called for Brady in the same situation?
But at the moment of truth, a yard from history, out of overconfidence or vanity or perhaps an ego-driven desire not merely to win but to outsmart Belichick, the game’s greatest coach, Carroll committed a blunder for the ages.
Now he will have to win back his players, those who have never won a championship and those who saw a second ring snatched from their fingers. He will have to start the climb all over, with lingering questions every step of the way.
While Carroll’s players cleared out their lockers this week, Belichick led his in a championship parade.
The Patriots’ loose ends will take care of themselves. Somehow, they always do.
Carroll’s biggest job is ahead of hi
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