A day later, the decision looks no less cataclysmically bad than it did the moment it was made.

It won’t look any different 10 days later. Or 10 years later.

Pete Carroll looks on after Malcolm Butler intercepted a Russell Wilson pass at the goal line to clinch the Patriots’ 28-24 win in the Super Bowl on Sunday. The Associated Press

One yard was all that stood between the Seahawks, a Super Bowl victory and a claim to their rightful place as an NFL dynasty, and all of it unraveled in one mind-numbing moment.

One yard between a spectacular comeback victory over a Patriots team that had already recovered from a 10-point deficit to take a 28-24 lead in Super Bowl XLIX.

And then the fateful decision that will live with Pete Carroll, Russell Wilson, Marshawn Lynch and anyone else with a remote interest in the Seahawks.

One yard and 20 seconds to play, and Carroll decides it’s better to put the ball and his team’s fate in Wilson’s hands rather than Lynch, the most powerful running back in the game and the man who could single-handedly give the Seahawks a second straight Super Bowl title and foil the Patriots’ championship hopes for a third torturous time.

And then it happened: the worst decision in pro sports history.

Carroll and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell outthought themselves and outthought the moment, suddenly and mystifyingly going away from their best chance for another championship and putting the ball in the air on a play that leaves you shaking your head at how ill-fated it turned out to be.

No matter that Lynch had only scored once from the 1-yard line in five previous tries this season, a stat that undoubtedly figuring into Carroll’s and Bevell’s thinking. Forget those numbers. Forget trying to get fancy in that situation. Forget taking the ball out of your best player’s hands.

Carroll offered a disjointed, almost indecipherable explanation after the game.

“We have everything in mind, how we’re going to do it. We’re going to leave them no time, and we had our plays to do it,” he said. “We sent in our personnel, they sent in goal-line (package) – it’s not the right matchup for us to run the football – so on second down we throw the ball really to kind of waste a play.”

Waste a play? Really? In the final seconds of the Super Bowl?

My goodness.

Forget about wasting a play. On second-and-goal from the 1-yard line with 20 seconds left and one timeout still in your pocket, you give the ball to Lynch. Period. If you don’t think you can make that yard up the middle, where the Patriots are stout with burly nose tackle Vince Wilfork and sure-tackling linebacker Dont’a Hightower, then run a stretch play, which the Patriots have been vulnerable to all season. Even if you don’t make it on that play, you still have the timeout and time enough for two more passing plays – or else another shot with Lynch.

But a slant route to unheralded wide receiver Ricardo Lockette, who had a total of 18 regular-season catches in his four-year career? Really?

Once the Patriots saw the Seahawks’ formation, they knew what was coming. Even rookie cornerback Malcolm Butler, who made the team as an undrafted free-agent walk-on in training camp, recognized the formation. And once Lockette darted toward the middle, Butler anticipated the play and stepped up to make the game-saving interception for the Patriots. And the dynasty-killing turnover for the Seahawks.

Carroll put the blame on himself, owning up to the decision and declining to sell out any of his coaches or players.

It’s not the first time he has been burned by a moment like this. With a chance to win a national championship at USC in 2006, Carroll inexplicably took Heisman Trophy-winning running back Reggie Bush off the field on fourth-and-1. The Trojans didn’t convert, and Vince Young led a remarkable comeback to win it for Texas. To this day, the USC players still regret what happened. It will be the same reaction for Seahawks players long after their careers are over.

For his part, Wilson won’t look past himself and his role in what happened.

“I put the blame on me – I’m the one who threw it,” he said.

No matter the rationalization, it doesn’t take any of the pain away, nor does it make it any easier for Seattle to comprehend what had just happened.

You ride Lynch this long and this far, and then you make him an afterthought on the most important play of the season, and the pain of the biggest second-guess you will ever see will live on.

A day later, it still leaves you shaking your head. It won’t be any different no matter how much time passes.

This one will hurt for a lifetime.

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