Super Bowl 49 from A to Z
By Will Osgood
C
Carroll, Pete
Pete Carroll first led an NFL franchise in 1994 when he was 43 years of age running the New York Jets. His stint as head coach lasted just one season as he went 6-10 and got the ax.
In 1997, at age 46, he took over for legend Bill Parcells, who had led the Patriots to the Super Bowl the previous season. Using Parcells’ roster, Carroll guided the Pats to a 10-6 record, but his teams got successively worse, as his third year in 1999 the team went 8-8, and he was again fired.
The story of how Carroll got another shot in the NFL is rather legendary, as he turned the once-proud University of Southern California Trojans into a national power and almost-dynasty.
Circumstances made it convenient for Carroll to leave Southern Cal in 2010, which is when he joined hands with general manager John Schneider in Seattle to create one of the best run franchises in the league. Carroll’s fingerprints are all over the personnel, but it’s his infectious personality and youthful enthusiasm—even at a much more mature 63 years of age—that make him arguably one of the finest coaches in the league.
In his five seasons in Seattle, the Seahawks have made the playoffs four times, winning at least one game in each go-round, including the Super Bowl last season in a blowout of the Denver Broncos.
Carroll is 50-30 (.625 winning percentage) in the regular season in Seattle and 83-61 for his entire NFL career (.576).
He gets the pleasure of coaching his Seahawks against a former employer this week. Of the matchup, he called it “personal” but also “really fun”.
Cardinals
The Cardinals are the host franchise for Super Bowl XLIX. They were hoping to make the 2014 season the first in which the franchise hosting the game was also playing in it.
And they started the season out looking like they had a great chance—going 9-1 in their first 10 games, and leading the NFL in win percentage for approximately the first three-quarters of the season.
But starting quarterback Carson Palmer played in just six games (the team won all six) and backup Drew Stanton was lost in November, leaving them with Ryan Lindley—who the team cut after training camp—as the starter in December and in their road playoff loss at Carolina.
The result is that we have seen 49 Super Bowls come and go (well 49 will be gone sooner than you know it), and still not one time has the host team played in the game.
Chancellor, Kam
I’ll keep this short. Chancellor was drafted in the fifth round, 133rd overall in 2010 out of Virginia Tech. He was viewed then as too slow and stiff to be a regular starting NFL safety. He has proven the doubters wrong in five years, become one of the elite “in-the-box” safeties in the NFL.
Yeah, Chancellor doesn’t have the athleticism to play safety in NFL. OKAY! He also has the physicality in case you were wondering.
Keep in mind that hit came on Mike Tolbert, a certified bowling ball/freight train who stands 5’9″ but weighs 243 pounds, and generally runs people over.
The Seahawk secondary is nicknamed “Legion of Boom”. They get the boom from Chancellor.
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