If you're still in a funk over the way Super Bowl XLIX ended – an agonizing yard short for the Seahawks – you're not alone.
Russell Wilson not only shares your disappointment, he has shared his feelings in a video on The Players' Tribune – the website that was started last fall by former New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter. Wilson, the Seahawks' quarterback, was one of the first players that Jeter recruited as a contributor.
"Super Bowl XLIX, I take full responsibility for it," said Wilson, whose second-down pass from the 1-yard line was intercepted by the New England Patriots' Malcolm Butler at the goal line with 20 seconds left to preserve his team's 28-24 victory.
"The hardest thing about that game was to be able to walk off that field, all those fans, and feeling like you let them down."
But if you think Wilson is going to let that one game, that one play, torment him throughout the offseason; you've forgotten just how positive the Seahawks' QB is. Motivate, yes. Torment, no way.
"The only thing you can look forward to is the next opportunity that you'll have," Wilson said.
Unfortunately for Wilson and all the 12s that were rendered so despondent after the Seahawks came within that one yard of winning back-to-back Super Bowls, that next opportunity won't come for a while. The Seahawks' offseason program begins in April, and then it will be another three months until training camp opens and another six weeks after that before the regular season begins.
But Wilson's resolve is as strong as ever.
"The mindset doesn't change. The focus doesn't change," Wilson said. "The belief that I'm going to get there again and we're going to do it better that it's ever been done, that's never going to change for me."
