Most of you know I’m not a pro sports fan. I didn’t watch the Stupor Bowl last weekend. I have not watched any of the last 20 or so of them.

However, I am a football fan and have been intrigued with the story following the end of that game in which New England defeated Seattle 28-24.

For those not knowing what I am talking about, on second down and a timeout in his pocket with less than a minute to go the ball resting at the New England 1-yard line – and with arguably the most physical running back in the NFL in Marshawn Lynch in the backfield – Seattle head coach Pete Carroll opted for a quick slant pass right across the middle, hoping to catch the defense looking for a Lynch run by surprise (as apparently every other human being on earth was looking for).

However, an unknown rookie defensive player stepped in front of the pass and intercepted it, ending the threat and effectively ending the game.

Not a nanosecond had transpired before the gurus of the Internet had flooded social media with “stupidest call in history” and “what was Carroll thinking?” Experts on the television and elsewhere are talking about it even as you are reading this.

I get that. On the surface, you are a yard away from a go-ahead, potential championship-winning touchdown and you have what many feel is the best running back in the business. Why not line up with the man they call “Beast Mode” and just pound the ball in?

Good question and, apparently, a lot of folks have made up their minds that there just isn’t a justifiable answer. It seems every arm-chair coach knows without question what should have been called.

So why in the world would a coach that is getting paid $7 millioin a year make such a boneheaded decision, you ask?

Consider, ever how crazy the thought, that possibly he knows just a little bit about his own team and the percentages in play.

In the 2015 season alone, Marshawn Lynch had five opportunities to run the football from inside the opponents 1-yard line, which was precisely the situation in question on what can be argued is the biggest sports stage in existence. In those five previous attempts, Lynch scored one touchdown.

One attempt resulted in no gain and three ended up with “Beast Mode” losing yards.

In most situations, the most obvious choice is probably the one you are going to see utilized – and it’s clear that with a previous 80 percent failure rate, opposing teams were looking for Lynch to carry the ball in such a scenario. As a result, they sent everything they had at him to stop him.

Given that fact, you would also have a pretty safe bet on your hands that if everyone on the defense is pretty well defending one man, that should give someone else the chance to be open and make a play.

But, the arm-chair quarterbacks retort, who in their right mind calls ANY kind of a pass play when you are inside the opponents’ 1-yard line? You have a time out to use. You just line up and pound the football into the end zone!

Again, I get that. Trust me, after calling more than 20 years of Thomas County Central’s veer offense on the radio, I absolutely understand. The Yellow Jackets run the ball the overwhelming majority of the time.

However, consider this statistical fact: in the NFL this season, throwing from the 1-yard line produced a higher touchdown percentage than running plays, 61 vs. 58 percent. And in the 2015 season, 109 National Football League passes were attempted from inside the 1-yard line and only one of them was intercepted.

Yep – the one on Sunday.

I’m not saying all of this to say Carroll’s call was the best call to make, but I think if you put yourself in the coach’s shoes and look at the odds, the chances of this particular call blowing up as it did were pretty slim.

I think what is getting lost in all of this is the fact that the play that was called was intended to take advantage of a rookie defensive back, undrafted Malcolm Butler of West Alabama, who it would be very easy to assume was like the other 99.9 percent of humanity and was looking for a run. All of the pressure was squarely on his shoulders – and he stepped up and made the biggest play in the biggest game of his life.

And do you know how he did that? He watched hours and hours of tape leading up to the game, working hard to prepare for anything the opposition could throw at him. After the game he commented how he had seen that the particular “stack” formation that Seattle ran that play out several times, and it almost always indicated it was going to be some kind of pass play and that it was going to be up to him to react to it.

As much as I don’t care for professional sports, it’s actually kind of refreshing to see one side roll the dice with something nobody expected and even more refreshing to see a total underdog on the other side step up and make the biggest play of the game not because of luck, but because of old-fashioned preparation.