Shaun Alexander Made a Boo Boo
It’s a tough day to be a Seahawks fan. When your team gives a game away it’s always tough. On Sunday, while driving for the game winning field goal, the Seahawks instead fumbled the ball away into a game winner for the Cardinals.
How could they let that happen? How can a team make such a critical mistake in the final two minutes of a game? If you listen to Shaun Alexander, it sounds like it was his fault. Without directly admitting it, Alexander basically says he wasn’t paying such good attention, forgot what was going on, and panicked.
“We just blew it,” Alexander said. “I thought Matt was audibling and then I thought, ‘Ah no, this is the fake audible.’ And I took a step to run the play that was called and I saw the guy running in the backfield, so I thought, ‘Oh, maybe this is a pass play.’ So I go try and run around Matt and it was crazy. I wasn’t sure if he was giving it to me, if I was blocking or if he was … ”
“We all thought it was a running play until I saw that guy come through and I thought ‘Maybe I missed a call,’ ” Alexander said. “I don’t know what happened after that.”
It seem that Alexander correctly thought it was going to be a running play, but when Gerald Hayes came charging into the backfield (something that usually doesn’t happen on running plays) he began to think he misinterpreted the audible and that it was actually a passing play. Instead of taking the hand-off, Alexander tried to go around Hasselback and make a block. Now it’s easy to see how the Cardinals got the ball—when Alexander, Hasselback, and Hayes came together, Hayes was the only one whose goal on the play was to grab the football.
It’s a tough break for the Seahawks, but that’s why coaches preach thata game can come down to one man, one play, or one mistake. On Sunday Gerald Hayes was that man, the fumble was that play, and Shaun Alexander made that mistake.
No Comments »