The Seahawks' goal-line interception is no longer a victimless crime. An obituary coming out of Washington state places blame for a man's death squarely on the Seattle team's shoulders.
Here's what happened: On Sunday, Seahawks die-hard Michael Vedvik was geared up to watch Super Bowl XLIX. Just hours after the Seahawks lost to the Patriots, Vedvik suffered a fatal heart attack.
Basically for any spectator of that game's final sequence of events, the decision to pass on second-and-goal from the half-yard line had to be confusing and distressing. Seattle fans believed their team had the Super Bowl won, and then suddenly they had lost. Such an up-and-down experience can't be good for anyone's health.
Now as it turns out, Vedvek didn't actually see the decisive play in which Patriots cornerback Malcolm Butler intercepted Russell Wilson's pass. He wasn't feeling well and recorded the game to watch later, but never got the chance, dying early Monday morning.
Perhaps his spirit had an inkling that something bad was going to happen to the Seahawks and wanted to spare him the pain of watching his team lose in such devastating fashion. His family made that connection by including this line in his obituary in The Spokesman-Review:
"[Michael] was a small business owner in Kent, WA and loved his family, work, clients, traveling, the Seahawks and life. We blame the Seahawks lousy play call for Mike’s untimely demise."
Talk about dark humor.
Despite the humorous jab, the obituary was also sincere, following the joke with, "Mike was greatly loved and will be dearly missed."
Vedvek's brother-in-law was the one who though to include the Seahawks line in the obit.
"My husband would have thought it was hysterical," Vedvek's wife, Stephanie, told the Spokesman-Review. "If I had read this obituary to my husband about somebody else, he would have had a laugh."
Morbid though it may be, the best humor blooms from the truth, and sports fans (or their loved ones) have used obituaries to express this in recent years.
In January, an obituary of a Pennsylvania woman took a shot at the Steelers: "Eleanor was a devoted Pittsburgh Steelers fan, and the family firmly believes that the recent separation of Dick LeBeau and the Steelers' poor performance this season might have inadvertently contributed to her demise."
In 2012, an obituary about a Connecticut woman needled the Mets but took them off the hook: "She was also a lifelong NY Mets fan though surprisingly, that wasn't what killed her."
