The New England Patriots defeated the Seattle Seahawks 28-24 at Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday night.
Malcolm Butler’s late interception sealed the victory for the Patriots.
Driving for what appeared to be the winning score, the Seahawks inexplicably chose to throw the ball into the end zone rather than hand the ball off to running back Marshawn Lynch. Butler, a rookie from West Alabama, jumped a slant route on the play to secure the win for New England.
Until that moment it seemed that Pete Carroll and the Seahawks were about to be crowned the first repeat champions in ten years. Seattle had overcome a slow start to tie the game at 14-14 going into the break.
Chris Matthews, a player who only was signed to the practice squad after the mid-season trade of Percy Harvin to the New York Jets, hauled in an 11-yard Russell Wilson bullet with two seconds to play to give the Seahawks all of the momentum.
Seattle went on to control the scoring in the third quarter via a Steven Hauschka field goal and a Doug Baldwin three-yard pass from Wilson for a touchdown, leaving them ten points to the good with a quarter to play.
But two touchdown passes from Tom Brady, one to Danny Amendola and the other to Julian Edelman, gave New England the late lead to set up the final moment of drama and a play call that will be debated forever.
The one consolation for Seattle is that their relatively young roster means that they should contend once again in 2015-16. The Patriots, in a poor AFC East, will always be a factor with Brady and head coach Bill Belichick, but this triumph had much more of a feeling of a finale for the duo than a new beginning.
