In true Carroll fashion, downside to throwing wasn’t a consideration

PHOENIX – Pete Carroll didn’t consider the downside of what turned out to be his team’s final play.

Then again, the downside is not something he focuses on for any play and as Seattle struggles to understand – let alone digest – the decision of the Seahawks’ coaches to throw the ball just 1 yard away from victory, you have to understand the role that Carroll’s outlook played.

He’s not just an optimist, but someone who believes that the way to maximize performance is to expect the best rather than fearing the worst. This is unique among football coaches, and it helps explain not only why Seattle called a pass play on second-and-goal in the final minute, but which pass play the Seahawks called.

“We don’t ever call a play – I don’t ever coach these guys one time – thinking they’re going to throw an interception,” Carroll said, “or thinking that we’re going to fumble the ball or thinking that they’re going to do something, catch the ball and take it back for a touchdown. I don’t ever think that.”

In other words: He wanted the best pass play in that situation, not the safest.

And for all the trouble that this city has understanding that play call, the decision to throw the ball actually wasn’t the problem. There was sound rationale as Seattle tried to balance a desire to take as much time as it could with making sure it had the chance to use every one of its chances to reach the end zone if necessary.

There were 30 seconds left, Seattle had as many as three plays left to run and one timeout. To ensure Seattle didn’t have to scramble in a hurry-up mode, one of those plays had to be a pass into the end zone.

“Either it’s going to be incomplete or it’s going to be a touchdown,” offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said. “Either way, we have a chance to stop the clock there.”

But instead of looking for the safest pass call, the Seahawks went with what Carroll called one of their favorite concepts. It was ran out of a tight formation in an already compressed area of the field where lots of things can go wrong, which is exactly what happened.

Cornerback Brandon Browner jammed Jermaine Kearse at the line viciously, preventing Kearse from getting into his route on the outside. If Kearse gets into his route, Malcolm Butler never has the lane he followed to explode through Ricardo Lockette to the ball.

But Carroll doesn’t consider the downside, which is not necessarily a criticism. After all, it’s the approach that led Seattle to run one more play with 6 seconds left in the second quarter when many coaches would have kicked a field goal instead of risking time running out in the half.

It’s also the reason Seattle called a fake field-goal attempt trailing 16-0 in the third quarter against Green Bay.

“We’re counting on our guys,” Carroll said. “We’re trusting the process. We go with what we know and what we’ve learned and how we can believe in our guys. That’s why we do what we do.

“That’s why sometimes we get scrutinized for stuff. Why would you do this? Why would you do that? Well, it’s because of that. It’s going to work. We believe things are going to happen.”

More specifically, it’s why he believes that good things are going to happen, and that’s a rarity among football coaches who don’t fear the worst so much as they prepare for it.

That’s certainly how Mike Holmgren felt. Back in 2005, the Seahawks lost their fourth game of the season at Washington, an overtime defeat in which Seattle’s Josh Brown had a 47-yard field-goal attempt deflect off the upright on the final play of the fourth quarter. The play before Brown’s attempt, the Seahawks ran the ball with Shaun Alexander being stopped for no gain on third-and-6. Afterward, a great deal of scrutiny descended upon Holmgren’s decision not to throw the ball to either gain the first down or shorten the field-goal attempt. Holmgren told the story of the time he was the offensive coordinator for San Francisco, his team already in position for a game-winning field goal against Atlanta when he called for Joe Montana to throw an out route to Jerry Rice.

“The safest play we had,” Holmgren said.

Deion Sanders broke on the football, drove in front of Rice and was in position to not just intercept the ball, but return it for a touchdown. He dropped the ball.

“And that was Joe Montana to Jerry Rice,” Holmgren said.

The implication was clear: If two of the best in football history could almost get picked off in that situation, well, Matt Hasselbeck was going to be handing the ball off.

Carroll coaches differently, often for better, but in this case for worse. He’s a guy who believes that staring at the floor and worrying about worst-case scenarios is no way to reach the greatest heights. And on the second-down throw that turned out to be the Seattle’s final play, Carroll wasn’t worried about what might happen so much as he was expecting his team to throw for the game-winning touchdown.

“There’s not a thought in my mind that we would make a mistake on that play,” Carroll said. “The mistake was a tremendous play by the guy on another side.”

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