What a great find! I never realized that Lockette ran a lackadaisical route in Butler's miracle INT play. That's hard to do in a quick-hitting slant, but Lockette definitely ran a few steps as if he were in flip-flops.
It makes me think that _not_ calling a TO was a brilliant, preplanned move to get the Seattle offense to rush, reverting to tendency: run the shallow pick slant, which they apparently overly rely on in such situations, so the clock would stop, giving them two more shots to score, if necessary.
One of the biggest decisions was the decision not to do what almost all the other coaches would have done, have the defense call a TO. So Belichick may be fibbing a little when he says what he should have done in hindsight. It was all according to plan.
How can Seattle, though, justify not having big Chris Matthews in the game on second and one? He was on his way to being the game's MVP, for real. We caught a break, since they, again, reverted to tendencies that we were prepared for.
Also, holding onto the ball a little longer--though Vince and the guys were getting a real good interior push--would have allowed an easy pitch'n'catch in the back corner of the endzone. Lynch, who was clearly running away from Chandler Jones, would have been open. Maybe that's why he was laughing at the end.
As some of the Seattle commenters have said, running a double stack and taking out the TE would have been checkmate. Browner likely would have gone to the other side, since Matthews was who he was covering most of the second half. It was Browner's ability to stuff Kearse like a brick wall that enabled the prepared, aggressive Butler to jump on the route, making the play of the season--and maybe even his career.
Could any other CB in the league other than Browner have so easily stonewalled Kearse? I don't think so. Having Matthews on the other side next to Baldwin would have negated what we had in Browner, and Butler probably would have arrived a half second later.
At best we would have faced an incomplete pass and Beastmode time.
But we had our own beastmode--Chandler Jones's dancing.
