Defense Wins Championships.

[ThePerfectBeard]

As much as we all want to see a high flying offense in Green Bay, I think it's time that we start getting better at drafting defense. Originally I wanted get a tight end, offensive line, and another receiver in this draft, but I've changed my mind. After watching this Superbowl and many others, it's hard to win without a decent defense. I mean the Broncos had one of the best receiving corps in the game and a pretty decent O-line. None of that mattered in this Superbowl. It was the team with a decent offensive strategy and a damn good defense that brought home the trophy. That's exactly how it's been in the past for the most part. The team with the best pass rush wins. I think it's time to give up on the gimmick defense and build a hard nose respectable defense that the NFC North has been known for. We haven't been all that good drafting on that side of the ball. Honestly, we could improve our offensive line a bit, but forget about the weapons. Yes they are nice to have, but so is a shut down defense. I'm fine with this draft being all about defense as long as we start getting it right. We need some big guys with closing speed.

 

[thisisnate]

3 of our first 4 picks will be defense. Possibly all 4, but I doubt it. First pick will absolutely be defense.

Seahawks defense looks incredible, but (not to marginalize their scouting) there has been a great deal of luck in hitting on some of their later draft picks. And you can't really set your gold standard at that level, because it's not sustainable when you have to start paying people.

 

[ivo610]

Your title thread is a myth and a common misconception. It's a great espn talking point but it's far from the truth.

 

[NOMOFO]

Your title thread is a myth and a common misconception. It's a great espn talking point but it's far from the truth.

yep... like I posted in another thread, it's just the "soup de jour" fan mindset. Just a few months ago we all had to try to be the Philadelphia Eagles. That fad was short lived.

 

[ivo610]

yep... like I posted in another thread, it's just the "soup de jour" fan mindset. Just a few months ago we all had to try to be the Philadelphia Eagles. That fad was short lived.

Agreed. Numerous examples exist showing that this is inaccurate.

 

[Alex]

Well, having a safety that is only 20 lbs lighter than Matthews and the same height running arund wrecking people certainly helps. I love their plan of having bigger defensive backs. I never understood the point of having guys my height go up against guys that are 6'4"-6'5".

 

[ThePerfectBeard]

yep... like I posted in another thread, it's just the "soup de jour" fan mindset. Just a few months ago we all had to try to be the Philadelphia Eagles. That fad was short lived.

Yuck... I would never want to be like the Beagles. And Alex has a point, we play small. I'm not saying we need the best defense in the league, but a good defense is necessary. When's the last time a team with absolutely no defense has won?

 

[ThePerfectBeard]

And yes I know defense isn't everything, but it's way more important than people realize. You can't consistently be the Colts in 06' and have a defense that's only good at playing ahead. You need them to make stands and get you back into the game.

 

[ivo610]

Balance wins, as well as efficient passing offense and good passing defense.

A **** offense isn't going to win and a **** defense isn't going to win either.

But really, when it comes down to 1 game, it's about match ups.

 

[Oshkoshpackfan]

We have to take a look around our division as well. We can't keep defending guys like megatron, Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffries with our DB's that are 5'10" and scrawny. We need a couple 6'3" 225-230 Lb speedsters that can deliver a knock out blow tackle. Giving up 6-8 inches of height and having a weight disadvantage is a major issue with our secondary....and their lack of ability to make any type of worth while tackle.

 

[NOMOFO]

We have to take a look around our division as well. We can't keep defending guys like megatron, Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffries with our DB's that are 5'10" and scrawny. We need a couple 6'3" 225-230 Lb speedsters that can deliver a knock out blow tackle. Giving up 6-8 inches of height and having a weight disadvantage is a major issue with our secondary....and their lack of ability to make any type of worth while tackle.

I said in another thread... I really agree...I can't stand how this team tackles...or should I say fails to tackle. Having said that, the Packers lack of a pass rush is as much to blame as anything for most of those big plays. I don't care who we have back there, with no pass rush it's not going to be good.

 

[Deleted member 6794]

Yuck... I would never want to be like the Beagles. And Alex has a point, we play small. I'm not saying we need the best defense in the league, but a good defense is necessary. When's the last time a team with absolutely no defense has won?

People really forget pretty fast. While the Seahawks defense was amazing all season and everbody´s believing right now that´s the only way to win the Super Bowl, let´s take a look at some other defenses that won the Super Bowl:

2012 Ravens: 17th in yards allowed, 12th in points against
2011 Giants: 27th / 25th
2009 Saints: 25th / 20th
2006 Colts: 21st / 23rd

 

[Sunshinepacker]

I would MUCH rather have a 5'10" corner with good coverage skills and good/great ball skills over a 6'2" corner with adequate coverage skills and poor ball skills. How easily people forget that Revis is only 5'11".

Some other terrific corners that are "short" according to some (i could go much further but I think you'll get the point):
Brent Grimes (MIA) 5'10"
Vontae Davis (IND) 5'11"
Tyrann Mathieu (ARZ) 5'09"
Lardarius Webb (BLT) 5'10"
Joe Haden (CLE) 5'11"
Willie Gay (PIT) 5'10"

5'10" is a perfectly adequate height for a corner. Sure, it's great to have a 6'02" corner that's great at everything but there are only twoof those in the entire NFL by my count: Sherman and Peterson. Saying that you want guys like that on your team is sort of stating the obvious. Sure, we would all like that. However, it's much more likely that you find a "short" corner that's really good rather than a "big" corner that's worth anything. Most guys that are Sherman and Peterson's size play WR.

The 2006 Colts are always a misleading example of a poor defense. They lost Bob Sanders for the majority of the season and then got him back during the playoffs. Sanders, when he was healthy, was one of the top 5 defensive players in the NFL. The Colts defense was actually really good when he was in there.

 

[AmishMafia]

Height is just another tool in the bag. Not necessary if you are good in other areas, but usually never a bad thing. NFL does go in cycles. Just wait. The great kids now getting into college are going to see the demand and emphasis put on tall corners. Kids who fit the profile will go in that direction. 5 years from now there will be a bunch of these kids coming into the NFL. The only problem with height is that it is a hinderance to acceleration/change of direction. So the WRs that will be really effective will not be the megatron's, but the 5'10" shifty guys that can cut on a dime and elude the big CBs.

As far as the draft goes, I am wondering if the rest of the NFL is going to emphasize defensive in the draft, thus leaving some good offensive players to slip lower than they should? Not sure - this is a defensive heavy draft. We are going to be able to grab a good player at 21. I would prefer defense, but if a great offensive player is there, we need to take him.



As far as defenses win championships, they were talking about this yesterday on NFL radio. One of the interesting facts is that the NFLs #1 defense and # offense have been in the SB 13 and 12 times respectively.

The #1 defense is 11-2
The #1 offense is 6-6

(this is to the best of my memory)

 

[Carl]

Just last season offense won the Super Bowl....

 

[Sunshinepacker]

Truth is that you need both. NFL is designed today to make it much easier for offenses to succeed. Packers have the best QB in the NFL. Therefore you really shouldn't need to spend as much on offensive personnel as you do on defensive personnel if you're the Packers. Rodgers makes mediocre receivers look good and he helps the running game just by being in. The rules help the offense. The defense is what needs the most assistance because defenses generally don't have ONE guy that makes everyone better and the rules are all against them.

 

[Oshkoshpackfan]

I would MUCH rather have a 5'10" corner with good coverage skills and good/great ball skills over a 6'2" corner with adequate coverage skills and poor ball skills. How easily people forget that Revis is only 5'11".

Some other terrific corners that are "short" according to some (i could go much further but I think you'll get the point):
Brent Grimes (MIA) 5'10"
Vontae Davis (IND) 5'11"
Tyrann Mathieu (ARZ) 5'09"
Lardarius Webb (BLT) 5'10"
Joe Haden (CLE) 5'11"
Willie Gay (PIT) 5'10"

5'10" is a perfectly adequate height for a corner. Sure, it's great to have a 6'02" corner that's great at everything but there are only twoof those in the entire NFL by my count: Sherman and Peterson. Saying that you want guys like that on your team is sort of stating the obvious. Sure, we would all like that. However, it's much more likely that you find a "short" corner that's really good rather than a "big" corner that's worth anything. Most guys that are Sherman and Peterson's size play WR.

The 2006 Colts are always a misleading example of a poor defense. They lost Bob Sanders for the majority of the season and then got him back during the playoffs. Sanders, when he was healthy, was one of the top 5 defensive players in the NFL. The Colts defense was actually really good when he was in there.

Good list...BUT....those guys are MUCH different than what we have....they CAN TACKLE. We have both sides of the disadvantage, short and cant tackle or deliver a mighty hit.

 

[Sunshinepacker]

Good list...BUT....those guys are MUCH different than what we have....they CAN TACKLE. We have both sides of the disadvantage, short and cant tackle or deliver a mighty hit.

I think the poor tackling issue is something that's going away (my impression, not a certainty). As Williams has had time to recover from his shoulder injury he's gotten better at tackling and Shields was terrible in 2011 but has actually become a pretty solid tackler for a corner. Now, none of them are up to the Seahawks' standards but bear in mind that Pete Carroll is the best secondary coach in football; he's really good at coaching those guys and getting exactly what he wants.

 

[GoPGo]

Bottom line is AFC in general was very weak. Denver played in a division full of teams with weak schedules. They played the NFC and AFC East divisions, which were also weak. Easy schedule = poor preparedness for Super Bowl.

 

[Ace]

As a newer member to these boards, forgive me if this has already been talked about but a stat that doesn't get talked about enough is defensive passer rating and it's coorelation to victories.

I'm taking this from memory because i have looked it up before but I believe since 2000 only 1 (possibly one or two more feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) team has won the Super Bowl with a defensive passer rating over 80. Also, again if I remember right only 1 team has won the Super Bowl with a defensive passer rating higher then their opponents in the Super Bowl.

In 2011 when the Packers went 15-1 while giving up the most yards in the league. Their defensive passer rating was 80.6 which ranked them 9th in the league. While the offense was spectacular that year, the defense, eventhough they gave up a ton of yards, was very opportunistic (led league in ints) to get the ball back to the offense.

In 2010 it's not surprise that GB and Pitt finished #1 and #2 respectively in defensive passer rating both were in the Super Bowl and of course the Packers ended up winning.

In 2002 TB finished with a 48.4 DPR while Brad Johnson put up very pedestrial number and they didn'thave a 1,000 rusher and Keyshawn barely broke 1,000 yards receiving. Oakland that year was also very good at 77.3.

Seattle (63.4) finished an astonishing 11 points better in this category over the next closest team. Denver on the other hand finished at 17 (84.5) which would lead to an above posters point that the AFC in general was very weak. Not to say wasn't any good or didnt deserve to be in the Super Bowl because that would be foolish but the numbers don't lie.

For me it's hard to look at whole numbers (total yards, total pts etc) as a guage for how good or bad a team may be. The numbers need to be broken down a little more to really get a guage of how good a team was.

I think with our offense, all we need is a defense similar to the one in 2011 and we have a chance. They don't have to be 2002 TB, but they need to be better then this year when they finished 25th in DPR at 95.9.

 

[Raptorman]

As a newer member to these boards, forgive me if this has already been talked about but a stat that doesn't get talked about enough is defensive passer rating and it's coorelation to victories.

On another board we have discussed passer rating differential. In other words, your offensive passer rating minus you defensive passing rating. And the higher the number the more likely you will win. For example in this years Super Bowl they went like this.

Denver. Off 114.4 Def. 84.5 Difference 29.9
Seattle. Off 102.4 Def. 63.4 Difference 39.0

Now, it's not always true but it seems to be a good indictor of success from what I remember.

 

[ivo610]

As a newer member to these boards, forgive me if this has already been talked about but a stat that doesn't get talked about enough is defensive passer rating and it's coorelation to victories.

I'm taking this from memory because i have looked it up before but I believe since 2000 only 1 (possibly one or two more feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) team has won the Super Bowl with a defensive passer rating over 80. Also, again if I remember right only 1 team has won the Super Bowl with a defensive passer rating higher then their opponents in the Super Bowl.

In 2011 when the Packers went 15-1 while giving up the most yards in the league. Their defensive passer rating was 80.6 which ranked them 9th in the league. While the offense was spectacular that year, the defense, eventhough they gave up a ton of yards, was very opportunistic (led league in ints) to get the ball back to the offense.

In 2010 it's not surprise that GB and Pitt finished #1 and #2 respectively in defensive passer rating both were in the Super Bowl and of course the Packers ended up winning.

In 2002 TB finished with a 48.4 DPR while Brad Johnson put up very pedestrial number and they didn'thave a 1,000 rusher and Keyshawn barely broke 1,000 yards receiving. Oakland that year was also very good at 77.3.

Seattle (63.4) finished an astonishing 11 points better in this category over the next closest team. Denver on the other hand finished at 17 (84.5) which would lead to an above posters point that the AFC in general was very weak. Not to say wasn't any good or didnt deserve to be in the Super Bowl because that would be foolish but the numbers don't lie.

For me it's hard to look at whole numbers (total yards, total pts etc) as a guage for how good or bad a team may be. The numbers need to be broken down a little more to really get a guage of how good a team was.

I think with our offense, all we need is a defense similar to the one in 2011 and we have a chance. They don't have to be 2002 TB, but they need to be better then this year when they finished 25th in DPR at 95.9.

You'll run into a lot of people on here who think the 2011 defense was the worst defense ever.

 

[Ace]

You'll run into a lot of people on here who think the 2011 defense was the worst defense ever.

As far as yards allowed they were, if thats how you chose to guage a defense.

Sent from my SCH-R970 using Tapatalk

 

[Ace]

You'll run into a lot of people on here who think the 2011 defense was the worst defense ever.

One of the worst ever based on yards allowed

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[JBlood]

If you believe in stats, since 2000, good offenses beat good defenses in the NFL: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/s...y-offense-is-more-important-than-defense.html

To summarize: "
"We can use advanced metrics of team performance like Expected Points Added (EPA) and Win Probability Added (WPA) to measure the spread in performance. The standard deviation of a distribution tells us how wide a statistic is distributed — Is the bell curve wide or narrow?

Since the 2000 season, the standard deviation of EPA is 81 points for team offense and 65 points for team defense. For WPA, it’s 2.6 wins for team offense and 2.0 wins for team defense. Both measures are 30 percent bigger for offense than defense." (my emphasis added)

This year's Super Bowl is an exception to the rule, assuming the "rule" is accurately reflected in the data. The NFL is geared to favor offense, and will continue to do so unless there are rules changes--such as allowing defensive holding and interference. If nothing else, Seattle has shown how effective those methods can be-- in addition to playing good, hard defensive football.