Pete Carroll: I 'Can't Stop Thinking About' Seahawks' Super Bowl Play

Pete Carroll went from Super Bowl champion to Internet piñata at the drop of a hat.

Carroll has been pummeled in the media since the Seattle Seahawks lost to the New England Patriots 28-24 in Super Bowl XLIX. And while the Seahawks head coach suggests he hasn’t been watching television the last few days, he apparently has been having a hard time getting over Seattle’s final offensive play, in which quarterback Russell Wilson threw an interception to Malcolm Butler near the goal line with 20 seconds remaining.

“I wake up and can’t stop thinking about it,” Carroll told Matt Lauer in a sit-down interview on NBC’s “Today.” “The sleep part works because you’re so worn out after the six months of the season that you can’t help but fall asleep. But it’s the waking up, it’s getting back to sleep (that) is the challenge.”

According to Carroll, there were some waterworks. The 63-year-old shed tears while laying in bed and reflecting on the play at 4:05 a.m. For him, the middle of the night marked an opportunity to take a step back and revisit the now-infamous loss.

Carroll has received most of the blame since Sunday for calling a pass play rather than calling upon Pro Bowl running back Marshawn Lynch with the ball at the 1-yard line. But while the decision was inexplicable to some, Carroll has a different take on the play Seattle attempted to execute.

“It was the worst result of a call ever,” Carroll said. “The call would have been a great one if we’d caught it. It would have been just fine, and nobody would have thought twice about it.

“We knew we were going to throw the ball one time in the sequence somewhere, and so we did, and it just didn’t turn out right.”