Who Said Defense Doesn't Win Championship? Think Again

Win Championships.

Also pretty sure you said you’d never post again on stampede blue (at least under this sock puppet account). Either way, you’re a joke. You are, of course, entitled to your own opinions, as dumb as they are. You actually share many of the same dbaggish qualities of our friend Omaha. well, at least Omaha knows what he’s talking about some of the time.

and good teams win championships. The last team that won the Super Bowl that was only good on defense was who, The Bucs in 02?

“You dont have to be the best team in the country, but you BETTER be the best team in the stadium”. Same applies for defense.

Once the playoffs start, you cannot win with a terrible D (Packers, Saints) or a terrible O (Niners) for long. I just looked at the offensive numbers and defensive numbers post season, this is what I came up with:

Postseason defense sorted by lowest PPG

Postseason offense sorted by highest PPG

Yes, I agree with the posters who said the postseason becomes a different season and the Colts of 2006, the Giants of 2007 and 2011 proved that (Giants did not give up more than 20 pts in their entire playoff run in both runs to win the SBs).

Defensively – Giants were No.1 in pts per game allowed, Patriots were No.3 in pts per game allowed

Offensively – Giants were No.5 in pts per game scored, Patriots were No.2 in pts per game scored

So, it definitely is not offense that won it for the Giants or Pats exclusively. Regardless of their regular season standings, both Ds stepped up in the playoffs and the ones that did not ended up going home. Yes, it does take balance on O and D. Giants won despite not scoring many pts in the NFCCG and SB because they won the time of possession battle – No.1 in that category throughout the playoffs (they had 11, 11 and 13 (2 in OT) offensive possessions in their NFC games leading to the SB if I remember right). Teams could not play keep away from Eli vs the Giants D and once the Giants D gave the ball to Eli, he controlled clock really well.

I will have to look at drive charts by postseason teams to see how many possessions were generated for the offense by the D and ST with turnovers and punts, it is not hard to fathom Giants are tops in that category too.

When in the NFC and AFC championship, the team with the worse defense and better offense lost both times. Defense doesnt win championships, balance does

Yes, the Patriots have lost the last 2 Super Bowls, but at least they got there. They’ve gotten to 5, as a matter of fact, plus the Steelers and Giants have 5 appearances between them with QBs nowhere near as consistently good as Peyton Manning (or Tom Brady). The fellow should have been more focused in his articulation, but his point is good: the Colts have been unbalanced in their personnel philosophy, favoring offense over defense and edge players over linemen. They also veered too far in favoring speed over bulk and toughness. Look at the size of the Patriots and Giants DLs and LBs versus those of the Colts. And that is defense. On offense, could you imagine the Giants or Patriots starting a pair of 2nd year undrafted free agents and a rookie on the offensive line?

The Colts invested far too much in the bad strategy of building for speed on defense because they are a dome team (the same philosophy that had the Oilers, Lions and Falcons adopt the run-and-shoot and the Vikings with a similar offensive philosophy under Denny Green) and relying on a cerebral, finesse offense led by great skill players because Peyton Manning liked the scheme. They got comfortable with thinking that Manning would either give them a lead or force foes into a shootout, causing their pass rushers and defensive backs could force sacks and turnovers. That works great against bad and average teams – see the great regular season record – but not in the playoffs (see the 9-10 record).