Pete Carroll’s Call and the Error of “Resulting”

One of the most controversial decisions in Super Bowl history took place in the closing seconds of Super Bowl XLIX in 2015. The Seattle Seahawks, with twenty-six seconds remaining and trailing by four points, had the ball on second down at the New England Patriots’ one-yard line. Everybody expected Seahawks coach Pete Carroll to call for a handoff to running back Marshawn Lynch.

Why wouldn’t you expect that call? It was a short-yardage situation and Lynch was one of the best running backs in the NFL. Instead, Carroll called for quarterback Russell Wilson to pass. New England intercepted the ball, winning the Super Bowl moments later. The headlines the next day were brutal:

USA Today: “What on Earth Was Seattle Thinking with Worst Play Call in NFL History?”

Washington Post: “‘Worst Play-Call in Super Bowl History’ Will Forever Alter Perception of Seahawks, Patriots”

FoxSports.com: “Dumbest Call in Super Bowl History Could Be Beginning of the End for Seattle Seahawks”

Seattle Times: “Seahawks Lost Because of the Worst Call in Super Bowl History”

The New Yorker: “A Coach’s Terrible Super Bowl Mistake”

Although the matter was considered by nearly every pundit as beyond debate, a few outlying voices argued that the play choice was sound, if not brilliant. Benjamin Morris’s analysis on FiveThirtyEight.com and Brian Burke’s on Slate.com convincingly argued that the decision to throw the ball was totally defensible, invoking clock-management and end-of-game considerations. They also pointed out that an interception was an extremely unlikely outcome. (Out of sixty-six passes attempted from an opponent’s one-yard line during the season, zero had been intercepted. In the previous fifteen seasons, the interception rate in that situation was about 2%.)

…Why did so many people so strongly believe that Pete Carroll got it so wrong? We can sum it up in four words: the play didn’t work. Take a moment to imagine that Wilson completed the pass for a game-winning touchdown. Wouldn’t the headlines change to “Brilliant Call” or “Seahawks Win Super Bowl on Surprise Play” or “Carroll Outsmarts Belichick”? Or imagine the pass had been incomplete and the Seahawks scored (or didn’t) on a third- or fourth-down running play. The headlines would be about those other plays.

…When I started playing poker, more experienced players warned me about the dangers of resulting, cautioning me to resist the temptation to change my strategy just because a few hands didn’t turn out well in the short run.

… But, as I found out from my own experiences in poker, resulting is a routine thinking pattern that bedevils all of us. Drawing an overly tight relationship between results and decision quality affects our decisions every day, potentially with far-reaching, catastrophic consequences.