Seattle Seahawks May Be The Worst In NFL History At This One Thing

Bryan DeArdo of CBS Sports recently took football fans on a
trip down Misery Lane
. He chose the one play that each franchise would like to do over. The one play that still has fans reaching for the Rolaids, no matter how far it recedes in the rear view.

I probably don’t have to tell Seahawks fans which play he selected for Seattle.

DeArdo did not rank the offending plays. He just did an alphabetical rundown. We’re not going to rank them either. At least not today. Have to save something for Christmas morning, don’t we?

But we will pick the cream of the crap. And our mission is to determine exactly where a particular play at the end of Super Bowl XLIX lands on the worst-of-all-time list.

The Seattle Seahawks might have the most disastrous play in NFL history

First thing to establish: context matters. A truly pathetic play – say, the Joe Pisarcik fumble at the end of the Miracle in the Meadowlands in 1978 – simply can’t rate all that high when it comes in a mundane regular season game.

To qualify for this dubious achievement award, a play really needs to come in a playoff game – Super Bowl, if possible. Of course, not every team has been to a Super Bowl (cough, cough – Cleveland Browns), so we’ll have to adjust accordingly.

Then there’s the impact, both immediate and long-term. Some plays cost a team a great achievement in the moment. Others truly seemed to sap the very lifeblood from a franchise.

Finally, there’s lore. Some plays become legend. Back in 1964, Vikings icon Jim Marshall famously recovered a fumble a ran the wrong way with the ball, all the way to his own end zone, where he tossed it away for a safety. But the Vikings won the game anyway, and so Marshall, who passed away earlier this month, became something of a lovable legend, and not a cursed name up in Minnesota.

So let’s count down the worst of the worst to see where Seattle ranks on the list.

6. Dallas Cowboys – Super Bowl XIII – Jackie Smith drops the ball

Remember when Mark Andrews dropped a surefire 2-point conversion in Baltimore’s divisional round loss to Buffalo last year? Old-time Cowboys fans certainly winced. They recall the wide-open Jackie Smith dropping a Roger Staubach touchdown back in 1979.

Smith, who had hauled in 480 passes and 40 touchdowns in his long career with the St. Louis Cardinals, had signed with Dallas to get a shot at a Super Bowl.

Had he held onto the throw, the Cowboys would have tied the game midway through the third quarter. Instead, they settled for a field goal and ended up losing the championship by four points.

5. Cleveland Browns – 1987 AFC Championship Game – The Fumble

I’m ignoring DeArdo’s choice for the most disastrous play in Browns history – a Brian Sipe pick thrown in the 1980/81 Divisional playoff game. Sipe was disastrous that entire day against the Oakland Raiders.

Eight years later, running back Earnest Byner had been a beast in the AFC Championship game against Denver. He had accounted for almost 200 total yards and had scored two touchdowns when he was on the verge of scoring his third. In fact, he did reach the end zone. The only problem was, he no longer had the ball. He had been hit and fumbled around the two-yard line.

Instead of a tie game late in the fourth quarter, the Broncos had control and were able to win and advance to the Super Bowl. The Browns made it back to the conference championship game two years later and fell to Denver again. That was the last time they got close to the Super Bowl.

4. TIE – New England – Super Bowl XLII – Helmet Catch, and Las Vegas/Oakland – 1972 Divisional Playoff Game – Immaculate Reception

I’m putting these two historic plays together because they did not involve a mistake by the team in question. They were both the result of remarkable plays made by the opponent. Fluky perhaps. But it is hard to really blame either the Pats or the Raiders for the sad fate that befell them.

Franco Harris plucked a deflected pass inches from the ground and scored a touchdown to help launch the Steelers dynasty of the 1970s. And the unheralded David Tyree ruined New England’s seemingly unstoppable march to 17-0.

I would consider a different play from a different Giants-Patriots Super Bowl equally devastating, and responsibility for that one – a Wes Welker drop – falls squarely on New England. But it doesn’t have the iconic nickname of “Helmet Catch.”

2. Tennessee – Super Bowl XXXIV – One Yard Short

Earnest Byner came up two yards short of a touchdown in play number four. Tennessee wide receiver Kevin Dyson did him one better, coming up a yard shy of a touchdown that would have likely tied Super Bowl XXXIV and sent the game to overtime.

Tennessee had come back from 16 points down late in the third quarter to tie the game just shy of the two-minute warning. But St. Louis struck back immediately. Titans’ QB Steve McNair then marched his team methodically down the field (dodging a dropped interception along the way) to set up one final play from the ten-yard line.

It worked beautifully, but Rams’ linebacker Mike Jones made an even better defensive play and stopped a lunging Dyson inches short of the goal line as the clock expired. It was the Titans’ first, and to date, only trip to the Super Bowl.

1. I figure you have guessed by this point (Seahawks versus Patriots)

For its combination of drama at the highest level, maddening decision-making and subsequent impact, no play in NFL history looms larger than Malcolm Butler’s interception in the waning seconds of Super Bowl XLIX.

Ten years on, what still haunts you the most about this cataclysm?  Is it the fact that someone – whether
it was Pete Carroll
or Darrell Bevell remains a point of contention – chose not to hand the ball to one of the toughest short-yardage runners in football history when his team had two plays to gain one yard and claim a second straight Lombardi Trophy?

Or was the play that was in fact called – a dangerous short slant to a receiver who, despite having a good run in the playoffs, still had entered the game with fewer than 20 career catches?

Or do you blame the players? Did Russell Wilson put the ball too far in front of Ricardo Lockette, allowing for disaster? Or did Lockette allow a smaller, even less experienced defender to outmuscle him for the ball?

No matter how you analyze it, it turned a virtually certain victory into a tragedy. Seattle, which appeared to be on the cusp of dynasty moments before Malcolm Butler secured the interception on the goal line, has not been back to the Conference Championship, and has gone just 2-6 in their playoff games since the infamous play.

Tom Brady might not have ascended to greatest-QB-of-all-time.
Russell Wilson would have
been Patrick Mahomes a half-decade ahead of schedule. And Seahawks’ fans would have a joyous memory instead of lingering heartburn. And that makes it the greatest bad play in NFL history.

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This article was originally published on Farovintas
Seattle Seahawks might be the worst in NFL history at one thing
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