Seahawks’ Robert Turbin isn’t buying into final-play conspiracy

There’s at least one Seahawks running back who isn’t buying the notion that Seattle’s coaches had some ulterior motives in not handing off to Marshawn Lynch on the decisive play of the Super Bowl.

“I highly doubt that. I highly doubt that,” Robert Turbin told “The Barbershop” on 710 ESPN Seattle Monday night. “Everybody wants to win. It’s not the first time in Coach Carroll’s history that he’s coached players with different personalities, and he’s still won. He’s never cared at that point in his career; why would it be any different now? All of that is just talk. We all go in there and try to win.”

Listen: Seahawks’ Robert Turbin on “The Barbershop”

In addition to all the second-guessing over the strategy Seattle employed by throwing the ball from the 1-yard line instead of giving the ball to the best power running back in the league, there have been some – including at least one unnamed player in the Seahawks’ locker room immediately after the game, according to the NFL Network’s Mike Silver – who believe that decision was made in an effort to make Russell Wilson and not Lynch the hero of the Super Bowl.

Lynch seemed to point to that sentiment over the weekend when he told a Turkish television station: “When you look at me, and you let me run that ball in … I am the face of the nation. You know, MVP of the Super Bowl … that’s pretty much the face of the nation at that point of time. I don’t know what went into that call. I mean, maybe it was a good thing that I didn’t get the ball. I mean, you know, it cost us the Super Bowl.”

In addition to saying he doesn’t believe that was part of the coaches’ thinking on that final play call, Turbin defended the strategy behind throwing the ball on second-and-goal from the 1-yard line.

“It’s not the first time … you’re in a goal-line situation, you run the ball and you throw on second down. I mean, it’s a strategy. It happens all the time. Plenty of teams have done it. I’ve seen it on film, just watching live games,” he said. “Certain coaches and teams scheme that way, and as a team we believed the scheme. Nobody’s trying to lose a football game, especially the Super Bowl. Every call that’s made, you have to believe and trust in the call and believe that you’re going to execute and get the job done. We did, and the Patriots were fortunate enough to make a play.”

Turbin added: “There’s been plenty of games where teams have thrown the ball in that situation and scored game-winning touchdowns, and then there were games where the defense made a play. That’s the game, that’s the game we play.”