FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Behold the power of good coaching.
For the third head-to-head meeting between Pete Carroll’s Seahawks and the Patriots of Bill Belichick, both teams again delivered a masterpiece in a 31–24 Seahawks victory, a thriller at Gillette Stadium that once again went down to the final play.
And in a microcosm of the short-lived but epic rivalry, it came down to a mono-a-mono steel cage, death match: a 1-yard fade from Tom Brady to the two Adonises on each team, Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and Seahawks safety Kam Chancellor. They locked arms, engaged in an equal shoving match, neither could make a play on the ball, and the ball fell harmlessly incomplete with no flag on the play (on that, you could almost hear the sigh of relief coming from 200 miles away in the Art McNally GameDay Central officiating command as another NFL controversy was averted on national television).