An average of 114.4 million people watched the Super Bowl 49 on Sunday night, making it the most-viewed program in American history. I also learned that I’m not the only one who cares to tune in at the end because the highest volume of folks tuning in was between 9:45 to 10 p.m. ET, in the fourth quarter, when viewership peaked at 120.8 million viewers.

Now, I won’t pretend to know more about Football than I do (which isn’t very much) but even I was left dumbfounded by what seemed like a no brainer for the Seahawks. The sentiment of the week has been that the Seahawks' decision to throw on second and goal at the 1-yard line, rather than running the ball, was the worst play call in NFL history.

Seahawks were seconds and inches away from a second straight championship but whether it was a bad call, bad timing, bad planning or just plain bad luck, the Seahawks’ coach Pete Carroll and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell will be second-guessed for a lifetime after “giving the game away” to the New England Patriots, 28-24.

Seattle's decision to pass rather than handoff to their “beast mode” running back Marshawn Lynch has most of us scratching our heads but it’s hard to believe that each call isn’t calculated and strategic – much like any large milestone in life - we need a plan in place to know which direction we’re heading and a framework to work within when the unexpected happens.

Carroll and Bevell’s explanations as to why they didn’t run made logical sense, but practically speaking, the Seahawks weren’t true to what they had on the field. They thought about what could go wrong if they had run the ball on second down with one timeout remaining rather than put the game in the hands of their best offensive weapon (Lynch).

This notion of being true to what you have is an important aspect of financial planning for my clients. At the heart of each Investment Policy Statement is your investor profile, which identifies your unique tolerance for risk, your time horizon, your motives for investing and your capacity to invest. Your investor profile then determines your asset allocation – which is the vital foundation to any portfolio – much like Carroll’s game plan. If it is determined that your strategic asset allocation is 65% Equities, 30% Fixed Income, 5% Cash and a year later the market has rallied, bringing your equities to 72%, tactical planning would require that you trim the equities back to 65% and maintain your allocation by staying true to your plan….because if you don’t and the next year is more of a bear, your 72% exposure to equities would put you at more risk than your plan warrants – even though it might be tempting to ride the equity rally when it happens.

Hand the ball off to Lynch and you likely score – was the likely plan – but instead, Carroll was thinking two steps ahead, which is what every coach should do, and lost focus of what was right in front of him – but that’s a lot of pressure to handle in a matter of seconds, so we can’t be too hard on the guy. Fortunately for us, your plan is built for the long-term with structured review meetings along the way to proactively make decisions about what’s happening next, instead of reacting in a hurry.