Perfect assessment of the Bleacherreport, but your also right about Triumph's article. It was an excellent job.
Matt Roth came in for a work out, and I really hope that we sign him. Not because I think he'll solve the "so called" pass rush issue, but because he'll be a solid contributor to the entire defense. The two most important points he makes in the "sack" segment is that where you rank in scoring defense is the most important defensive stat, and that it has little relationship to how you rank in sacks. Secondly, having a great individual sacker is NOT necessary to have success as a team in getting sacks.
I also appreciated his comments on the running game. I don't think people appreciate how important the running game is BEYOND actually gaining yards. I think the "clock killin" aspect is very underrated. For every minuted your team can control the ball is one minute less your opponents offense can score. A 10 minute scoring drive is a much more effective method to win the game than a 3 minute one.
As to the "game that shall not be mentioned" I think the loss of Stephan Neal in the first series of the game was a critical and highly UNDERRATED loss. I don't think the Giants would have had nearly the success they had rushing the passer they had, if he hadn't gone down.
And I appreciated that he noted that the Packer superbowl loss was closer than the score indicated.
I'm not sure I see the logic in your reasoning. While it's true that every minute you control the ball is one minute less your opponents' offense can score, it's equally true by definition that it's one minute off the clock that
your offense could score in.
Football is essentially turn based. Teams alternate opportunities to be on offense. You can't score twice in one possession, so making your turn last longer doesn't change the even ratio of chances to score between you and your opponent (unless you're running out the time at the end of the half or game.)
Rather, what long drives do is reduce the total number of possessions both teams get, which increases the leverage value w/r/t win chance % of each individual possession. The fewer the total possessions in a game, the bigger a role the outcome of each individual possession will have on the game. This is why it's good for teams with the lead to kill the clock -- you know you've already 'won' the possessions that already happened, so the bigger the role they play in the final score, the better for you.
Of course, reducing the number of 'iterations' in the match and magnifying the effect of each iteration's outcome makes the winner more 'random.' The greater the sample size, the better the odds of 'normal' distribution. So if your offense is going to score on their defense 60 percent of the time, and their offense is going to score on your defense 50 percent of the time, the more possessions in the game, the better for you.
This, and not "keeping Manning/Brady on the sideline" is ultimately why keeping the number of possessions down turns out to often be the right strategy for teams when playing the Colts or (latter-day) Patriots. By increasing the leverage value of any iteration's fluke outcome, time of possession helps teams beat opponents that are overall better than they are.
