\ud83d\udcfa: NFL 100 Greatest Plays on @NFLNetwork<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Udx7beThvz<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 NFL (@NFL) September 21, 2019<\/a><\/p>\n \n That win in February 2015 broke a 10-year Super Bowl drought for the Patriots and sent Brady and Bill Belichick into a second dynasty, cementing their places as the greatest quarterback and head coach of all time. Seeds sown during that incredible run \u2013 three more Super Bowls appearances, two of them resulting in championships, in the next five years \u2013 grew into a divorce that forced New England\u2019s first wholesale rebuild in a generation.\n <\/p>\n \n For the Seahawks, it represented the moment the waters began to recede from the franchise\u2019s golden era.\n <\/p>\n \n Lynch believes the Legion of Boom defense combined with himself, Wilson and a host of cornerstone receivers could have gone on to win at least one more Super Bowl if not more. The dynasty of the 2010s could have been blue-and-green rather than red-white-and-blue. Instead what followed was the slow disintegration of a championship core, an inability to reclimb the mountain and the slow, depressing slide into lamenting what could have been.\n <\/p>\n \n And it all started with one baffling choice.\n <\/p>\n \n When he heard the play call in the huddle, Lynch was so stunned that he couldn\u2019t really process what had just happened.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf you go back and you look at the play, \u2026 I\u2019m processing ,I\u2019m lined up on the wrong side. I line up on the wrong side,\u201d Lynch told Shannon Sharpe on the Club Shay Shay podcast in in 2023.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI\u2019m bouncing from back and forth behind (Wilson) like, oh s**t. By the time it sat in like, \u2018M**********r, what did you just call?,\u2019 you just hear all the cheering from the other sideline.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Lynch said everyone in the huddle aside from Wilson was rocked by the decision to pass instead of run.\n <\/p>\n \n For a split second, it looked like Lockette might make the play. He had a lane to run through once the ball got to him. Butler simply beat him to the ball.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt didn\u2019t work out right. Guy made a move like he was gonna do something, and I said, \u2018I\u2019m gonna do something too.\u2019 And just believing in getting another opportunity, and you might get a small opportunity,\u201d Butler said, describing his mindset as the ball was snapped. \u201cLike that game was supposed to have been over, but it wasn\u2019t. But, like, that\u2019s the point of taking advantage of these small opportunities and big opportunities when it when they present themselves.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n From the moment Butler hit the turf with the ball in his hands, everything changed for both franchises.\n <\/p>\n \n Lynch said his initial reaction was to walk off the field and laugh directly in head coach Pete Carroll\u2019s face. The man known as Beast Mode didn\u2019t stick around to watch the Patriots\u2019 final plays \u2013 he went straight to the locker room. By the time the rest of his teammates were coming in from the field, he was headed back out to meet up with his family and friends.\n <\/p>\n \n Lynch would spend one more year in Seattle. He announced his retirement after the next season (it was short lived, he\u2019d sit out a year and then return to the then-Oakland Raiders, his hometown team). The more time has gone by, the more it seems to hurt \u2013 the pain was still evident in his voice in that 2023 interview.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cYou took a dream away. You took a moment away. You arguably, you take a dynasty away,\u201d Lynch said to Sharpe. \u201cI mean, because then you in position that, hey, we win two Super Bowls. Maybe I don\u2019t want to be the highest paid corner or the highest paid safety or the highest paid receiver, nah, spread that cheese through the whole team so we can bring everybody back. And we could go try to do three.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAnd we felt, let\u2019s see what we could get out of it. So, I mean, you know, not only do you take away all that s**t, but you know, you put us in the history books as the dumbest call in football history. And then, I mean, you know, for my situation on the other end of it, it\u2019s gonna be an everlasting question that I\u2019m getting: Why?\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Lynch said in that interview he\u2019s heard all the theories. That if he scored that touchdown, he\u2019d have been Super Bowl MVP and Carroll didn\u2019t want that or that the NFL didn\u2019t want that. That it was better for the team or the league for Wilson to be the Super Bowl MVP. In private, he said he never got a straightforward explanation for why pass the ball instead of running it.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cNow that it\u2019s been so much time in between, it probably wouldn\u2019t even matter,\u201d Lynch said.\n <\/p>\n \n The Seahawks were never the same after that moment.\n <\/p>\n \n The swagger with which the 2013-14 and 2014-15 teams played could never be recaptured. It might be best expressed by the heartbreak and shock that crossed Richard Sherman\u2019s face <\/a>on the sideline after Butler\u2019s interception, melting away the confidence that was there moments before.\n <\/p>\n \n What the play represented, in retrospect, was a conscious choice by the team\u2019s front office: The Seahawks were Wilson\u2019s team and they\u2019d go as far as he\u2019d take them.\n <\/p>\n \n They went to the divisional round a few times, but no further.\n <\/p>\n \n Wilson was the golden child when he first arrived in Seattle but as the 2010s turned toward the 2020s, the relationship he had with his organization, his fan base and his teammates soured. At a live taping of Lynch\u2019s podcast last month, several former Seahawks who played with Wilson were asked about their relationship with their former quarterback.\n <\/p>\n \n The crowd booed the mention of Wilson\u2019s name.<\/a> The group of Wilson\u2019s former teammates demurred. No one wanted to speak on how things fell apart.\n <\/p>\n \n It was a long, slow decline. After putting the team in Wilson\u2019s hands on the field, the relationship between the quarterback, his coach and the front office deteriorated \u2013 first slowly, then all at once. There had been rumblings of discontent between the star and the front office for years when, in early 2021, Wilson went public with his frustrations at not being treated similarly to Tom Brady or other top-level quarterbacks who were instrumental in their franchise\u2019s decision making. He complained about how many hits he\u2019d taken by defenders, insinuating the team didn\u2019t do enough to protect him.\n <\/p>\n \n In 2022, he was traded to Denver. He spent two disappointing seasons there before underwhelming spells in Pittsburgh and New York with the Giants. He\u2019ll be a free agent again this spring.\n <\/p>\n \n Carroll, meanwhile, went on to be the elder statesman of NFL head coaches but could never get back over the hump. His teams after Super Bowl XILX were rarely bad but never great. After Wilson was sent to Denver, he relied on a resurgent Geno Smith to quarterback his team and two 9-8 seasons followed.\n <\/p>\n \n He eventually left the team after the 2023-24 season as the Seahawks officially moved into a new era.\n <\/p>\n \n On the opposite sideline of State Farm Stadium was a resurgent giant.\n <\/p>\n \n The Patriots won three Super Bowls in 2002, 2004 and 2005 and then proceeded on an incredible run of almosts.\n <\/p>\n \n They almost pulled off an undefeated season in 2007-08, losing to the Giants. They almost beat the Giants again in Super Bowl XLVI three years later. They almost got back to the Super Bowl in the two seasons after that, losing in the AFC championship game each year.\n <\/p>\n \n And then they almost lost Super Bowl XLIX against Seattle, if not for Butler\u2019s heroics.\n <\/p>\n \n Instead, a weight was lifted and the Patriots went on another generational run. After losing in the AFC championship again the following season, the Pats rolled off three straight Super Bowl appearances. Their thrilling win over the Falcons in 2017 and less-than-thrilling win over the Rams in 2019 ensured their leaders would be legends of the game.\n <\/p>\n \n But what it also fostered was a sense of pride \u2013 and not the good kind. Instead, tension built between Brady and Belichick after 20 years of working together. Brady wanted more money \u2013 for himself and for better offensive weapons after talent drain in New England. Belichick wanted to look toward the future and didn\u2019t want to spend the money Brady wanted to shell out.\n <\/p>\n \n And, deep down in both men, there was surely a desire to prove that they could do it without the other man.\n <\/p>\n \n Ultimately, it was Brady who did.\n <\/p>\n \n As the world shut down for the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Brady shocked the football world by announcing he was signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He\u2019d made it clear over the previous few years that he didn\u2019t feel appreciated by Belichick or the Patriots front office \u2013 going to Tampa was the chance to prove he didn\u2019t need to be in red-white-and-blue to win a Super Bowl.\n <\/p>\n \n And that\u2019s what he pulled off, winning his final championship in 2021 with a resounding thumping of the Kansas City Chiefs, 31-9. Another 13-4 season followed with a divisional round exit and Brady began his dance with retirement \u2013 announcing in the spring of 2022 that he was retiring before unretiring and playing one final season with the Bucs, winning another division title before being knocked out of the playoffs. Brady called it quits after that season.\n <\/p>\n \n Belichick, meanwhile, couldn\u2019t do it without Brady. The Pats went to the playoffs once in the years after Brady left and finished under .500 in three of those four years. Eventually, Belichick left the Patriots by mutual agreement in early 2024 and he spent a year as a distinctly un-Belichickian TV host \u2013 funny, insightful, charming in a grumpy guy kind of way \u2013 before moving to the college game as the head coach of the University of North Carolina<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n The Patriots themselves bottomed out last year, going 3-14 in the first season since 2001 without Belichick or Brady.\n <\/p>\n \n Ultimately, it was a stalwart of the first Patriots dynasty, the one that seemed so unlikely when it formed in 2001-02 and changed the course of 21st century football, to bring them back to the mountaintop. Head coach Mike Vrabel played linebacker for Belichick and caught multiple touchdown passes from Brady.\n <\/p>\n ![\"Seattle](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ap26036749938592.jpg\")
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