the taildragger
Third String But Playing on Special Teams
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Today NFL Live continued to propagate the myth that offense is “less important†than defense.
It's tautological to suggest that "D wins championships" because we all know you can't win a championship with lousy D, but you can't win with a lousy O either.
A team is the sum of its parts, if its deficient on one side, it better make make it up on the other...overall balance can make up for deficiencies on both sides.
All things being equal, O is every bit as important as D.
This will sound ******ed, but I'm going to spell it out for the well-meaning folks at ESPN: Championship teams need to score against GOOD defense and keep GOOD offenses from scoring...if they excel at one of those two things, they don't have to be as good at the other...but you can't win a championship without doing a little of both.
Out of 40 SB winners, how many had average or below average offense?...the '85 Bears had Walter Payton, if you don't think he made their defense better you are clueless...the '90 Giants had a dominant possession-style offense as well...then there's everyone's favorite triumverate: the '00 Ravens, '01 Pats and '02 Bucs. The Bucs had a great D in 2001, but it wasn't until Gruden overhauled their OFFENSE that they became legit. I'll address the Pats and Ravens below...
Keep in mind, these are the EXCEPTIONS...out of 40 Super Bowl winners there are only five cases where the D was superior to the O, and in none of those cases was the O insignificant or merely carried along for the ride.
The ESPN crew eagerly cited the usual suspect – the Ravens.
They failed to acknowledge the huge increase in production that season after Dilfer replaced Banks. They failed to acknowledge the GOD AWFUL offenses the Ravens faced in 2001, including their own anemic division. And they also brushed aside Merril Hoge's point that the Ravens' O did a great job of keeping their opponents off the field (huge impact on “points allowedâ€). Once again, big-time pundits fail to understand the basics of complimentary football – while throwing around stats like they actually know what they’re talking about.
Trey went as far as to claim the Rams had a great D in ’99 -- note to Trey: the statistical strength of the Rams’ defense that season had a little something to do with the 20-point leads they played with.
Darren Woodson fully understands the concept of playing downhill or playing with leverage – but apparently his Dallas teams won despite their Hall of Fame running and passing games (not)...those Dallas teams were stacked on BOTH sides, they were a dynasty because of great balance and talent, not because the D was better than the O...that's just dumb.
Leverage is the same reason the Colts’ D is so great at creating turnovers.
Let's look back at the SB Patriots in 2001:
The truth is that if the '01 Pats had been able to impose their will on the ground and/or allowed the protection in the passing game needed to throw down the field, they would’ve ROLLED over the Rams. Smith also credits the Pats’ D (rather than special teams for winning the AFC Championship)…dumb.
A bad offense still looks bad regardless of how dominant the defense plays...but a great offense ALWAYS makes a defense look better.
:bricks:
It's tautological to suggest that "D wins championships" because we all know you can't win a championship with lousy D, but you can't win with a lousy O either.
A team is the sum of its parts, if its deficient on one side, it better make make it up on the other...overall balance can make up for deficiencies on both sides.
All things being equal, O is every bit as important as D.
This will sound ******ed, but I'm going to spell it out for the well-meaning folks at ESPN: Championship teams need to score against GOOD defense and keep GOOD offenses from scoring...if they excel at one of those two things, they don't have to be as good at the other...but you can't win a championship without doing a little of both.
Out of 40 SB winners, how many had average or below average offense?...the '85 Bears had Walter Payton, if you don't think he made their defense better you are clueless...the '90 Giants had a dominant possession-style offense as well...then there's everyone's favorite triumverate: the '00 Ravens, '01 Pats and '02 Bucs. The Bucs had a great D in 2001, but it wasn't until Gruden overhauled their OFFENSE that they became legit. I'll address the Pats and Ravens below...
Keep in mind, these are the EXCEPTIONS...out of 40 Super Bowl winners there are only five cases where the D was superior to the O, and in none of those cases was the O insignificant or merely carried along for the ride.
The ESPN crew eagerly cited the usual suspect – the Ravens.
They failed to acknowledge the huge increase in production that season after Dilfer replaced Banks. They failed to acknowledge the GOD AWFUL offenses the Ravens faced in 2001, including their own anemic division. And they also brushed aside Merril Hoge's point that the Ravens' O did a great job of keeping their opponents off the field (huge impact on “points allowedâ€). Once again, big-time pundits fail to understand the basics of complimentary football – while throwing around stats like they actually know what they’re talking about.
Trey went as far as to claim the Rams had a great D in ’99 -- note to Trey: the statistical strength of the Rams’ defense that season had a little something to do with the 20-point leads they played with.
Darren Woodson fully understands the concept of playing downhill or playing with leverage – but apparently his Dallas teams won despite their Hall of Fame running and passing games (not)...those Dallas teams were stacked on BOTH sides, they were a dynasty because of great balance and talent, not because the D was better than the O...that's just dumb.
Leverage is the same reason the Colts’ D is so great at creating turnovers.
Let's look back at the SB Patriots in 2001:
- Was the overall D stronger than the overall O: Yes, no doubt about it.
- Was the D exhausted and worthless in the 4th-quarter of the Super Bowl: Absolutely -- they morphed into the Chiefs’ D against Tiki Barber.
- Would we have likely won the game in a "5th quarter": No, the Rams would’ve continued to score on every possession and eventually would’ve stopped us…however, they may have won in OT if the coin flip went their way.
- Why was the D so worn out?: because the Pats did not have a legitimate ground game, and, unlike 2003, didn’t have enough protection/options in the passing game to balance it out, plus against the aggressive Rams’ DBs they had to be conservative in the passing game…conservative playcalling + lack of weapons = no offense = worn out defense.
The truth is that if the '01 Pats had been able to impose their will on the ground and/or allowed the protection in the passing game needed to throw down the field, they would’ve ROLLED over the Rams. Smith also credits the Pats’ D (rather than special teams for winning the AFC Championship)…dumb.
A bad offense still looks bad regardless of how dominant the defense plays...but a great offense ALWAYS makes a defense look better.
:bricks:
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