Shake it off

Marshawn Lynch certainly knows how to frame a story when he told Shannon Sharpe he laughed in Pete Carroll's face after that ill-fated call that cost Seattle Super Bowl LIX.  To hear Beastmode tell it, he headed straight for the locker room not wanting to see the Patriots kneel to close out the game.   The Seahawks were on the verge of establishing a dynasty, instead they became just another team to have won a single Super Bowl.

To hear Pete it was a good call just poorly executed, resting the blame on Russell Wilson.  I've re-watched that play any number of times and there is no way Russ could have seen Malcom Butler.  The small cornerback was lurking behind the much taller Lockette.  Russ assumed his man was open, only for Butler to perfectly time the throw and pop the ball right out of Lockette's hands and into his own.  Even if Ricardo had been able to hold onto the ball he would have been short of the goal line. 

Everyone knew that play was coming with the two receivers stacked on the end.  I thought it was a decoy to give Marshawn more room to run.  Beastmode had been running all over New England that night so there was little reason to doubt he couldn't push the ball in.  Nope, Russ carried through with the play as called from the sideline as any third-year quarterback on a rookie contract would do.  He was in no position to challenge it.  

The would-be Seattle dynasty was over and the New England dynasty was reborn that night. Tom Brady would go onto win two more Super Bowls with the Patriots, including a stunning comeback against the Atlanta Falcons.  Seattle would drift into anonymity.  No matter how hard Pete tried he could never find the magic formula again.  By this point, most teams had adopted similar defensive schemes and Pete's offense only came to life behind Russ Wilson but Pete never accepted that, as if holding Russ personally to blame for that loss.

I suppose that is why I don't much care about football anymore at either the NFL or college level.  I was taken up in the Coach Prime viral obsession as Colorado stormed through their first three games of the season.  As for my alma mater Florida Gators, they managed to squeeze one out against South Carolina on the road but there is little to suggest they are back to the level they were under Urban Meyer, which was recently the subject of a Netflix documentary series.

This isn't a game anymore but a rich man's fantasy.  The average NFL football franchise is now valued at $5.1 billion.   A pathetic team like the Washington Commanders (formerly known as the Redskins) sold for $6.05 billion last year.  Universities pump huge amounts of money into their football programs and pay fabulous salaries to coaches they believe will win them a national championship.  Is it worth it?  Hard to say.  Whatever the case, it takes all the fun out of the game, even when Taylor Swift shows up for Kansas City games to watch her new beau play.

Deion Sanders similarly inspired a legion of celebrities to show up at Colorado games with infamous rappers giving pep talks in the locker room.  A meaningless late night game with Colorado State attracted more viewers than any other football game that weekend thanks to all the celebrities in the stands.  Unfortunately, the Buffalos got blown out the next weekend at Oregon and the fairy tale came to an abrupt end.

With all the newfound attention ticket prices have soared to as much as you would pay for a "cheap seat" at a Taylor Swift concert.  The average price for a family of four to watch an NFL game ranges from $250 for the lowly Arizona Cardinals to more than $1000 for the undefeated San Francisco 49'ers!  College football games aren't much cheaper.  The Coach Prime era saw the average price of a Colorado Buffalo game soar to over $300, although I imagine that price will tumble after blowing a 29-point lead against 1-4 Stanford.

Then there is all the franchising.  It's a huge business and players now get a cut of the action because it is usually their names and numbers you want on your authentic jerseys.  Still, there are plenty of discount retailers when a team loses.  I picked up a Wilson Super Bowl LIX jersey for twenty bucks after that ignoble loss.  Much of this stuff is pawned off as charity clothes to developing nations afterward.  

After seven years of futility, Pete traded Russ to Denver, netting a slew of draft picks.  This was going to be a reset for Seattle.  Geno Smith turned out to be better than anyone expected but he still is no Russell Wilson, getting shellacked by San Francisco in the first round of the playoffs last year.  To be fair, Russ didn't fair very well at Denver, struggling through a miserable 4-13 season.  Things were supposed to get much better this year, but Sean Payton has brought even more misery to Denver, and like Pete appearing to blame Russ for the woeful start.  Meanwhile, Seattle has jumped off to a 3-1 start and Pete is starting to look like a genius again.

This maybe why Marshawn chose to drop the hammer on Pete in his interview with Shannon Sharpe.  He couldn't stand his quarterback being made to bear the brunt for that awful call.  Not like he and Russ were homies, but Marshawn clearly put the blame on Pete for the "worst call" in Super Bowl history.

I try to "shake it off" but I still wonder what might have been had Seattle completed its comeback against New England that night.  I had stayed up until the wee hours of the morning to watch that Super Bowl on NFL.com.  I had also cut out a bunch of "Paper Hawks" that had been made available through The Seattle Times, including ones of Russ and Marshawn.  I still have them around somewhere.  Forgotten is that the Seahawks' vaunted defense gave up two fourth quarter touchdowns and Seattle wouldn't even have been in a position to win had not Jerome Kearse come down with this incredible catch inside the New England ten-yard line with less than a minute to play.  Beautiful throw too.