With the Seattle Seahawks sitting
on the 4 yard-line with one minute remaining and down by four points, it looked
as though the New England Patriots were headed to another disappointing Super
Bowl finish. But the Seahawks made the controversial decision to throw the
ball, the Patriots intercepted on the 1-yard line and New England went on to
win, 28-24.
With 1:06 left, Seahawks wideout
Jermaine Kearse hauled in a miraculous, juggling catch while going to the
ground. That gave Seattle the ball inside the 10-yard line and looked to seal
the Seahawks' late comeback. But Malcolm Butler stepped inside on a slant on
the goal line and made the pick.
Trailing by 10 points midway
through the fourth quarter, the Patriots were on the ropes. But as he's done so
many times before, Tom Brady mounted a comeback, throwing two touchdowns in the
final eight minutes to guide his team to the win.
With just over two minutes left
in the game, Brady found Julian Edelman for a 3-yard touchdown, putting the
Patriots on top for the first time since late in the second quarter. Brady, who
picked up his fourth career Super Bowl ring with the win, finished 37-of-50 for
328 yards, four touchdowns and two picks.
The two teams came out of
halftime tied, but the third quarter was all Seattle. Alternating big throws
over the top from Wilson and downhill runs from Lynch, the Seahawks piled up
155 yards of offense and 10 unanswered points to climb in front, 24-14. Wilson
notched his second touchdown pass of the game late in the third quarter,
finding Doug Baldwin for a 3-yard score.
But New England wasn't going
quietly. Brady engineered a critical scoring drive, completing 5 of 7 passes
and finding Danny Amendola for a 4-yard score with just under eight minutes
left in the game.
After a scoreless first quarter,
the game started heating up in the second. The Patriots got on the board first,
using a string of short dump off passes to move 65 yards for a 7-0 lead. Brady
completed the first of his two first-half scores, threading the ball to Brandon
LaFell for an 11-yard touchdown.
A flurry of points just before
halftime tied up the game. A long pass play from Wilson to Chris Matthews
helped jolt the Seahawks out of an offensive funk midway through the second
quarter and Marshawn Lynch punched it into the end zone three plays later to
tie the game at 7. Brady capped a quick two-minute drive with a dime of a pass
to Rob Gronkowski down the sideline to go back up by seven with 31 seconds left
in the half, but once again, the Seahawks had a response. A trio of chunk plays
moved Seattle quickly downfield, setting up a game-tying touchdown from Wilson
to Matthews with just two seconds on the clock. Watch nfl live stream online. >>> http://nfl.livesportsstreamingtv.com/
SB Nation presents: Final
thoughts on the unbelievable finish to Super Bowl XLIX
1) Julian Edelman was the
Patriots' star.
Edelman was Brady's go-to guy all
night, tallying nine catches for 109 yards. He w,as the key spark for the Patriots'
critical fourth-quarter touchdown march to pull back within three, catching a
pair of drive-extending passes. On the first of those catches, he took a hard
helmet-to-helmet hit that left him wobbly and he struggled to climb back to his
feet on several occasions after that. Edelman was never checked for a
concussion and stayed in the game.
With just under five minutes
left, Edelman shook free of his man on the goal line and hauled in the go-ahead
touchdown from Brady.
3) Marshawn Lynch was the key to
the second half.
Big plays in the passing game
were the spark to the Seahawks second-quarter rallies, but it was Marshawn
Lynch's consistent output on the ground that allowed Seattle to take control of
the game in the second half. The Patriots owned the line of scrimmage early,
but Lynch's pounding running style began to wear them down as the game wore on.
He ran rampant in the third quarter, and it's now coincidence that the Seahawks
outscored the Patriots 10-0 during that same span.
But the Patriots began bottling
him up in the fourth quarter. Unable to move the ball on the ground, the
Seahawks offense floundered, going three-and-out to start the quarter and
watching New England surge back in front with 14 unanswered points.
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