As Dickson notes, once he left the end zone, he was committed. Had Dickson come up short of the first down, he would have been giving the Lions a very short field with about two minutes left on the clock, allowing them to potentially make it a one-score game with enough time remaining in the game to make things interesting. The risk involved is probably why when Dickson told Schneider during practice this week about his conversation with Carroll, the special teams coordinator told him not to do it, and that Carroll was probably just joking with him when he brought it up.

"That was in the back of my mind when I ran it," Dickson said.

Carroll confirmed that when he suggested to Dickson that he should perhaps try running the ball, he wasn't envisioning his punter doing so from his own end zone late in a game.

"I did not have that scenario in mind," Carroll said. "Maybe I was a little out of whack back there out in England when this happened."

But even if it wasn't how Carroll—or anyone else—would have imagined that play transpiring, he was excited to see his punter take a chance and make a big play.

"That's going to be my favorite play for a while," Carroll said.

When first asked about the play, Carroll jokingly referred to is as "the Aussie sweep" and deadpanned that "we've been drawing that one up for months waiting for the chance."

But in reality, it was just a case of an athlete making a big play, albeit an unconventional one.

"That was us taking a safety, and that was a really terrific competitor, seeing the moment and seizing it," Carroll said. "I thought Mike was smiling as he turned the corner and he knew he could make the first down. He knew he was going to have to take a hit and he was thinking about taking care of the football. It was an incredibly beautiful play. Sometimes you have to improvise and really good players seem to do it at the right time. I thought that was a fantastic illustration of what's to come.

"I thought it was awesome. I can't love a play more than that. It was like he went against all tradition, all thinking and everything. But he saw a situation and he took advantage of it. And I think that's what great players do and they surprise you sometimes. That was truly a surprise. That was a great moment and I was really fired up for him."

Dickson's teammates were as surprised as fans watching on TV or at Ford Field, because they knew the plan was for their punter to take a safety.

"Oh man, immediately I thought of Coach Schneider, like, 'Oh crap, what's he going to say?'" receiver Doug Baldwin said. "Then when (Dickson) crossed the first-down marker, it was like, 'All right, good, now we win the game.' It was exciting for sure. Interesting."

Quarterback Russell Wilson said the play, "was a little scary there for a second, but then to see him accelerate, the Aussie, he got a first down. That was pretty cool."

Dickson knew he was taking a pretty big risk, but in the end, his reasoning was pretty simple.