Defense wins championships

[Pappy13]

On the other hand, 2 elite offenses with suspect defenses were knocked out of the playoffs this past weekend. To be fair, one elite defense was knocked out by a team with an elite offense and a suspect defense as well, so what is the common demoninator?

It's balance. The Giants and 49'ers have balance and they defeated teams with great offenses, but suspect defenses.  Denver has a good defense, but weak offense. Most people think that Pittsburgh (a team with more balance) would have given New England a better game.  Baltimore has more balance, I'm interested to see how that game turns out.

Looking at the teams that are left, it's the more complete teams that are left over the unbalanced teams 3-1.

In my opinion it was NEVER true that defense wins championships. All along it's been a combination of offense and defense that wins championships. You can have one or the other and do well, but you really need to be at least pretty good in both typically to win a championship.

[Landshark]

LandsharkDamus

[MikeO]

Manning threw for 296. Brady for 276. No defense in this game where each QB goes for essentially 300 yards. Giants had 396 total yards of offense. Pats 349

Two teams with terrible defenses played for it all and both showed their true colors tonight. They both played bad defenses and couldn't stop the opposing QB. The Pats offense stopped itself with a bunch of bad drops, lets be honest.

[Pappy13]

^^ Oh please. 21 to 17? 300 yards USED to mean something, it doesn't anymore. Now if you don't get 400 yards passing you were only average.

[MikeO]

^^ Oh please. 21 to 17? 300 yards USED to mean something, it doesn't anymore. Now if you don't get 400 yards passing you were only average.

If Defense matters why weren't SF and Baltimore playing today??  I mean seriously, these are 2 bad defensive teams who played bad defense today.

You don't win with defense in this league. I think the Giants, Pats, and Packers are proving that.  Giants 28th ranked defense, and if Wes Welker doesn't drop a wide open pass they let Brady win a ring. The Giants defense was bad and was bailed out by a bunch of Pats drops late

[Thundergod]

Sometimes, not all the time, sometimes it just seems like people want to argue with Mike. He's right btw. Those drops were killer. And if 300 is average... wow.   

[dolfan13]

teams used to be built to win the super bowl around running the ball and stopping the run.

it has changed to passing the ball and stopping the pass. in today's nfl, in order to contend for a super bowl you need a top tier qb, and multiple pass rushers to build the team around.

[Landshark]

If Defense matters why weren't SF and Baltimore playing today??  I mean seriously, these are 2 bad defensive teams who played bad defense today.

You don't win with defense in this league. I think the Giants, Pats, and Packers are proving that.  Giants 28th ranked defense, and if Wes Welker doesn't drop a wide open pass they let Brady win a ring. The Giants defense was bad and was bailed out by a bunch of Pats drops late

Tom Brady and the entire New England offense got their asses shut down tonight.  17 points.  Nuff said.

[MikeO]

Tom Brady and the entire New England offense got their asses shut down tonight.  17 points.  Nuff said.

Tom Brady broke an NFL record with 16 straight completions at one point. The Giants couldn't shut them down, the Pats dropped a bunch of passes and those unforced errors cost them. The Giants didn't stop them the Pats stopped themselves

It was the 27th rated defense vs the 31st rated defense and it showed, in that game. Neither team can make a play on defense to save their life. Giants got bailed out late by key drops

[Landshark]

Tom Brady broke an NFL record with 16 straight completions at one point. The Giants couldn't shut them down, the Pats dropped a bunch of passes and those unforced errors cost them. The Giants didn't stop them the Pats stopped themselves

It was the 27th rated defense vs the 31st rated defense and it showed, in that game. Neither team can make a play on defense to save their life. Giants got bailed out late by key drops

The Giants defense is better than their ranking and way better than people give them credit for.  They shut down both Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers on the road to the Super Bowl.

The Pats offense is not so hot against a good defense.  The Ravens proved that in the AFC Title game.

[masterfins]

Gotta give some credit to the Giants' Special Teams, they pinned the Patsies deep a couple times.

[Pappy13]

If Defense matters why weren't SF and Baltimore playing today??  I mean seriously, these are 2 bad defensive teams who played bad defense today.

SF wasn't playing because New York's D played pretty damn well against SF too. Baltimore wasn't playing because there offense wasn't playing as good as New Englands.

You don't win with defense in this league.

Not every game, no. But you can win some. Just like with a great offense.

I think the Giants, Pats, and Packers are proving that. Giants 28th ranked defense, and if Wes Welker doesn't drop a wide open pass they let Brady win a ring. The Giants defense was bad and was bailed out by a bunch of Pats drops late

The Giants have a good D. It didn't show in the year totals because they had a ton of guys hurt earlier in the year, but it picked up late in the year and was much better. Welker didn't drop it, Brady missed him and forced him to try to make an acrobatic catch, which Welker normally makes, but he didn't. So the coverage wasn't that great on that one throw, there were a number of other contested throws to WR's. How about the batted balls on the line of scrimmage? You forget about those? How about the couple of sacks on Brady? Even when he wasn't getting sacked, he was pressured a LOT (hello safety?) and forced to move around a lot, much moreso than he normally does. You don't stop the Patriots and Brady, you slow them down and the Giants did that. Very few teams were able to do that this year to the Patriots. You could tell that the Giants were a lot more worried about Welker and Gronkowski and were taking those guys away, but when you do that, some other guys are gonna be open and Brady hit those guys for the most part, but Welker and Gronkowski didn't hurt them, which is what the Giants were trying to do.