Defensive ranks: Jets- 6th Steelers- 1st Packers- 2nd Bears- 4th Offensive ranks: Bears- 21st Steelers- 12th Jets- 13th Packers- 10th I think the answer is YES.
Another myth. NO was ranked in the 20s last year when they won and their opponent's ranking also subpar. In fact, rankings in general are a useless stat. It's not about overall offensive or defensive rank. Its about how efficiently you pass and stop the pass. You just have to be better than your opponent. So if you have a great QB you can have a weaker pass defense. If you have a great pass defense, you can get by with a lesser QB. And turnovers are included in that. Like I posted in the club, no team has won a championship since 1940 without having a better pass efficiency rating than their opponents either during the regular season or during their playoff run. Not one.
You're basically saying that you need either a GREAT QB or a GREAT defense, right? Well, over the last 44 Super Bowls the GREAT defenses have won out over the QB an overwhelming majority of the time. Trent Dilfer passed "efficiently" in 2000. Brady in 2001,2002 and 2004 passed efficiently too. However, without their #1, #5, #1, and #2 ranked defenses, respectively, they wouldn't have won crap.
That doesn’t prove defense wins championships; that proves that even great defenses need good quarterback play.
Not exactly. First, I'm saying that you don't need to be great everywhere on defense. The part that matters most is how efficiently you defend the pass. So, overall rankings are fairly meaningless. In fact, overall defense rankings for the SB participants have been dropping consistently for at least the last 40 years. Second, I'm saying that there is no one side that is sufficient alone, like you just need pass defense or just pass offense. What matters is the relative strength of both of those areas.
Not really. Super Bowl XXXV- Dilfer - 12-25 (48%), 153yds, 1TD----Defense ranked #1 SB XXXVI- Brady- 16-27 (59%), 145yds, 1 TD----Defense ranked #5 SB XXXVII- Johnson- 18-34 (52%), 211yds, 2 TD, 1 INT---Defense ranked #1 SB XXXVIII- Brady- 32-48 (66%), 354yds, 3TD, 1 INT---Defense ranked #1 SB XXXIX- Brady- 23-33 (68%), 236yds, 2 TD---Defense ranked #2 SB XL- Big Ben- 10-22 (42%), 123yds, 0TD, 2 INT---Defense ranked #2 SB XLI- Manning- 25-38 (65%), 247yds, 1TD, 1INT---Defense ranked #23 SB XLII- E. Manning- 19-34 (55%), 255yds, 2TD, 1 INT---Defense ranked #17 SB XLIII- Big Ben- 21-30 (70%), 256yds, 1 TD, 1 INT---Defense ranked #1 SB XLIV- Brees- 32-39, (82%), 288yds, 2TD---Defense ranked #20 This is the last 10 Super Bowls. Granted there were 3 teams that had defenses ranked lower than 16th (average), but that's still only 30%. If you were to look at the history of the Super Bowl, there are only 4 teams (Unitas' Colts, P. Manning's Colts, E. Manning's Giants, and Brees' Saints) that have ever won a Super Bowl with a defense not ranked at least in the top half of the league. This year's final 4 teams have defenses that rank no lower than 6th in the league. Defense won Championships 70% of the time in the 2000's. Over all, defense has won the Super Bowl 90% of the time throughout history.
Yes really. Look at the passing efficiency of Dilfer and Johnson in 2000 and 2002, especially in the playoffs. Those teams don’t win those Super Bowls if they don’t get the quarterback play they did in those situations. Defense hasn’t won championships in the NFL for a few decades now. Sort of like how the running game hasn’t brought championships to Tennessee, Jacksonville, Carolina, Minnesota, Chicago, or Seattle.
Again, you keep saying "efficient". Well, MOST NFL QB's are efficient or else they wouldn't be NFL starting QB's. Did you see the defensive ranks of those teams? There is ONE thing in common with 90% of the past Super Bowl winners, good to great defenses. Johnson completed only 52% of his passes, Dilfer was worse at 48%, Ben (in his 1st SB) completed 42%. Those are NOT going to get it done without a great defense. Sure there are QB's who have played great, but other than those 4 teams I mentioned, ALL Super Bowl winners had GREAT defenses. Hell, and the Giants held possibily the greatest offense ever to 14 points. That great, "efficient" QB, Tom Brady, could only muster 14 points even though they had averaged 38 PPG all season. A great defense trumps a great offense 90% of the time.
Yet the SB last year was won by a defensive play. Tracey Porter jumping the route against a great offensive team.
And the Giants defense won their game against the Patriots. And the Steelers with that 100 yard INT for a TD won their game. Look at all the Patriots Super Bowl wins..defensive scores. And the list goes on and on and on... (P.S. Ben went into that Super Bowl with 17 TD's and 15 INT's on the season. lol )
and passing is based on having a credible run threat. a defense that knows a team is passing, especially a championship caliber defense will shut down the passing game. the saints and colts only won those years because they had pierre thomas and the colts had rhodes and addai and had to be accounted for. you dont actually have to have the running backs run the ball. they just have to be accounted for and they have to be enough of a threat that defenses cant cheat. this argument is a classic case that you can isolate numbers as if they arent dependent on the other aspects of the team
Absurdly false. The majority of NFL QBs are inefficient and generally not capable of winning games. There are only a handful of quality quarterbacks in the NFL, and I’m not even including the eventual Hall of Famers like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, or Drew Brees. Less than half of all NFL teams—let’s say 12—have an efficient passing game. Some teams simply lack a QB who can play well, and so they can’t field an efficient passing offense. Some teams don’t even try, believing they can win by rushing the ball (Carolina under Fox, Tennessee, Chicago until the Martz hire, and a few others). In the end, it’s not coincidental that the quality of defenses that make the Super Bowl vary considerably, but the quality of quarterbacks that play in the Super Bowl are almost always among the best at their position in a given era. I’d really like to know what the defensive crowd thinks of this article.
WHAT!??! LMAO! Well, the last time I checked 12 teams make the playoffs each season. From season to season there are usually 4 or 5 new teams in the playoffs. So, in 2 seasons that means up to 17 QB's win enough to get to the post season. The defenses DO NOT vary considerably. However, the QB's have varied considerably. This is FACT and provably so. I put up a post awhile back that listed all of the QB's and the defense rankings for all the Super Bowls. The QB's are all over the spectrum. The defenses BARELY MOVE in rankings. Hell, look at the QB's in this years AFC/NFC Championship Games. Rodgers to Sanchez with Ben and Cutler in the middle. The gap doesn't get much wider than that. However, the four teams have defenses ranked 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 6th. Pretty damn close. WINNING QB's: Bart Starr, Green Bay Packers - SB I-----ALL TIME GREAT QB Bart Starr, Green Bay Packers - SB II Joe Namath, New York Jets - SBIII---------CRAP QB Len Dawson, Kansas City Chiefs - SB IV------AVERAGE QB Johnny Unitas, Baltimore Colts - SB V----ALL TIME GREAT QB Roger Staubach, Dallas Cowboys - SB VI---ALL TIME GREAT QB Bob Griese, Miami Dolphins - SB VII-----AVERAGE QB Bob Griese, Miami Dolphins - SB VIII Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh Steelers - SB IX---GREAT QB Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh Steelers - SB X Ken Stabler, Oakland Raiders - SB XI----GOOD QB Roger Staubach, Dallas Cowboys - SB XII Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh Steelers - SB XIII Terry Bradshaw, Pittsburgh Steelers - SB XIV Jim Plunkett, Oakland Raiders - SB XV-----BELOW AVERAGE QB Joe Montana, San Francisco 49ers - SB XVI---ALL TIME GREAT QB Joe Theismann, Washington Redskins - SB XVII----GOOD QB Jim Plunkett, Los Angeles Raiders - SB XVIII Joe Montana, San Francisco 49ers - SB XIX Jim McMahon, Chicago Bears - SB XX---AVERAGE QB Phil Simms, New York Giants - SB XXI----AVERAGE QB Doug Williams, Washington Redskins - SB XXII---AVERAGE QB Joe Montana, San Francisco 49ers - SB XXIII Joe Montana, San Francisco 49ers - SB XXIV Jeff Hostetler, New York Giants - SB XXV----BELOW AVERAGE QB Mark Rypien, Washington Redskins - SB XXVI -------BELOW AVERAGE QB Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboys - SB XXVII Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboys - SB XXVIII Steve Young, San Francisco 49ers - SB XXIX Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboys - SB XXX Brett Favre, Green Bay Packers - SB XXXI John Elway, Denver Broncos - SB XXXII John Elway, Denver Broncos - SB XXXIII----ALL TIME GREAT QB Kurt Warner, St. Louis Rams - SB XXXIV Trent Dilfer, Baltimore Ravens - SB XXXV-------CRAP QB Tom Brady, New England Patriots - SB XXXVI------GOOD QB Brad Johnson, Tampa Bay Buccaneers - SB XXXVII----AVERAGE QB Tom Brady, New England Patriots - SB XXXVIII Tom Brady, New England Patriots - SB XXXIX Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers - SB XL------AVERAGE QB Peyton Manning, Indianapolis Colts - SB XLI--ALL TIME GREAT QB Eli Manning, New York Giants - SB XLII-------AVERAGE QB Ben Roethlisberger, Pittsburgh Steelers - SB XLIII Drew Brees, New Orleans Saints - SB XLIV-----GREAT QB
FROM YOUR ARTICLE: Even the greatest quarterbacks had a lot of help – Johnny Unitas makes the short list of almost everybody’s “greatest quarterbacks ever.” He certainly makes our list, too. Unitas is best remembered for leading the Colts to victory over the Giants in the 1958 NFL title game, “The Best Game Ever.” Unitas and the Colts beat the Giants again the next year in the 1959 NFL championship game. But those Colts weren’t just great on offense. They dominated on defense, too. They topped the NFL in both Offensive Passer Rating and Defensive Passer Rating in both seasons. We believe they’re the only team in history to accomplish this feat in consecutive years. Both teams rank among the seven best champs in Passer Rating Differential. Bart Starr and Joe Montana are also on the very short list of best quarterbacks ever. But both these Hall of Famers were aided in their quests for multiple championships by shutdown pass defenses. I agree...
championships are won by teams who can do quite a few things well. you have pass defense, run defense, pass offense, run offense, kr, pr, k coverage, p coverage. if you win more than half those battles you win. if you dont you lose.
I know right..... didn't Carolina kick the ball out of bounds which gave the Pats the ball at the 40. In the SB.
Not really, regression studies have been done to isolate the importance of being good in various areas. The only areas that teams have not been able to win championships without being good at is passing more efficiently than their opponents. Every other stat you mentioned above has had champions who were poor at them except passing and defending the pass. And even those is a relative standard in that you just have to be better than your opponent. So if you are a very efficient passing team you don't have to be quite as good at defending the pass and vice-a-versa.
I don't find that stat to be all that useful in deciding how to build a team unless you just assume that points come through the pass. In that case it just goes back to the more specific stat which is defensive pass rating. The other part isn't as necessary.
so you can find an instance of a team being horrible at run defense, kr, pr, p coverage, k coverage and running the ball but they still won a championship because they could pass and stop the pass?
Well maybe from 70% of the time it really goes up to 90%... In 2006, the Colts D in the Post Season played better than in the Regular Season. If it was not for the play of that D, Peyton would have been 1 and out again in the Post Season... That in was # 2 in Points Allowed (16.2), allowed on 24% TDC and was # 1 in total yds allowed... In 2007, the Giants D in the Post Season, also played better than in the Regualr Season. Ranked # 1 in Points Allowed (16), and # 4 in total yds allowed... Now NO in 2009 had its D that was inconsistant even in the Post Season. It was in the middle of the pack in just about every category, but one, it was very opportunistic. Turn Overs and Pass Defense was their forte. 4 INTs (2 pick 6) and 5 fumbles helped their team reach the SB... So as we can see, in the Post Season, defenses ruled...
I've mentioned this fact before. Even those "horrible" defenses got better in the post season (for whatever reasons). In the Giants- Pats Super Bowl the Giants held the Pats to 14 points. During the regular season the Pats averaged 38 PPG. The Giants scored 17 points in the Super Bowl, and guess what? The Patriots defense gave up 17 PPG that season. So, all of the people who claim that the Patriots defense let them down in that Super Bowl are wrong. The Patriots defense played EXACTLY the way it had been playing and up to that point played well enough for the Pats to be 18-0. The real truth is that the Giants defense won that game. Just like the Saints defense last year, and the Steelers defense in their 2 Super Bowls, and the Bucs defense, and the Colts, and the Ravens, and the Patriots....And it wasn't just the last 10 seasons that this ws the case. Defense wins championships. Sure, it makes it easier when you have Joe Montana behind center, but as I've shown, lot's of sub-par QB's have either made it to or won the Super Bowl.
No I didn't. LOL...J/K...I mistakenly called Brady average. I do think he is a lot better than McMahon, Williams and Johnson...lol. (I changed it)
I'm not going to go through all those stats, but in the last 10 years alone the 2008 Steelers, 2003 Pats, 2002 Bucs and 2001 Pats were horrible run offenses (YPC below 4.0 and ranked in the 20s or 30s). The 2009 Saints, 2006 Colts and 2001 Pats were horrible at run defense. I don't know how to check the STs proficiency of the various teams, but the correlation studies have shown that STs in general doesn't have nearly the impact of the other units simply b/c they happen less frequently. They can have a big impact in one game but over the course of a season their impact is marginal. All you really need to do is be average in those areas.
The 2008 Steelers (av. 105 YPG rushing), 2003 Pats ( av. 100 YPG rushing), 2002 Bucs (av 97 YPG rushing), and 2001 Pats (av. 112 YPG rushing) and had defenses ranked #1, #1, #1, and # 5, respectively. Those are not "horrible" averages.
you still fail to grasp that isolating one area of the game in isolation of the others gives you a false picture in football. statistics dont lend themselves to football because unlike baseball all the parts are intertwined with each other. an example would be the 1985 Bears were 4th in net yards gained in pass attempts which if you took it at face value would mean they were the 4th best passing team in the NFL. But that is false to anyone who actually watched that season. A major portion of their passing proficiency was based on the fact that they had the number one rushing offense and teams were geared up to stop the run. Had the Bears not been able to run their passing numbers would have dropped precariously because defenses wouldnt have been geared to stop the run. The numbers lie when taken at face value. Football is a game of interrelated parts and you cant isolate one factor from the other and arrive at any meaningful conclusion. passing helps the run game and running helps the pass game. only observation and a knowledge of the game will tell you which are the prime factors for a team's success in any given year, not statistics. they are utterly meaningless no matter how hard you try to give them credence. Running is as relevant to winning as is defense as is special teams as is passing. whoever has the best combination of all those factors wins
Its a cop out to just say you need to be great at everything. That's like saying you have to have great at every position. Factually we know that to be false. Every team has players that aren't as good and every team has things they don't do as well as others. But that's okay b/c not all aspects of the game are equally important. The fact is that there are certain positions that are more important than others. Nobody would argue against the position that QB is the most important position on the field. It would be ridiculous to pretend that having a good punter is as important as having a good QB. Likewise its ridiculous to pretend that being good at punt coverage is as important as passing efficiently. Everybody knows that from watching the game. And the statistics show that as well. No matter how much you want to pretend they don't. The fact of the matter is that every single champion over the last 70 tears has been able to pass more efficiently than their opponents. Obviously you don't pass and defend the pass in a vacuum. There are other areas that complement those areas. But the fact that those are the only areas that are present in every single champion indicates that they are the only ones that are essential. If you can't do those well it doesn't matter how well you run or defend the run or any other category you want to pretend is just as important.
That's provably false. 2005 Super Bowl- Ben Roth- 10-22, 166yds, 1 TD, 2 INT's Hasselbeck- 26-49, 273yds, 1 TD, 1 INT I've proven you wrong. There are other games too, but I don't feel like looking them all up if one will suffice.
No, what you've proven is that you've done a poor job with your reading comprehension. Here is what I said in my very first response in this thread: Like I posted in the club, no team has won a championship since 1940 without having a better pass efficiency rating than their opponents either during the regular season or during their playoff run. Not one. To support that I'll provide a link to somebody who did look at 70 years of champions: http://www.coldhardfootballfacts.co...:_A_brief_history_of_NFL_air_superiority.html
You may have posted that in the club (I haven't read that post), but here you clearly wrote: The fact of the matter is that every single champion over the last 70 tears has been able to pass more efficiently than their opponents. The 2005 Super Bowl stats prove that statement to be 100% false. So, my "comprehension" is not only spot on, but you're now spinning because I proved you wrong. I doubt anyone actually thinks that a team can win a Super Bowl without fielding an offense. No one is claiming that a great offense is a worse option than a bad offense. What my point is, a great defense trumps a great offense 90% of the time. The stats prove this. Go back and look at the offensive and defensive rankings of all the Super Bowl teams. Both winners and losers.
Its not spinning. I posted that quote in this thread (as I already said in the post you responded to, but apparently missed again). The point is nobody has won a championship in the last 70 years without being more efficient at passing than their opponents during the regular season or the playoff run. Not 90% of the time, 100% of the time.
You are spinning. You said, and the post is right up there for you to look over again, The fact of the matter is that every single champion over the last 70 tears has been able to pass more efficiently than their opponents. Now, maybe you worded it wrongly from your "club level" post, but it is what it is. Now, as to your "pass efficient" stats, doesn't that also have something to do with how well the defenses played? Also, this "stat" seems pretty flimsy. It's almost as if I was to say, "Every single champion over the last 70 years scored more points than their opponents in the championship game." And then tried to prove something by saying that. Once again, defense wins championships. Out of 44 Super Bowls, only 4 teams have had less than average defenses. Here is a better way of determing what matters most: Since 1980, the teams with the best of this stat won this % of the time: Offensive passing- 50% Offensive running- 57% Offensive INT's: 61% Defensive passing: 61% Defensive rushing: 48% Defensive INT's: 54% Seems to me that offensive passing is not as important as running the ball, not turning the ball over, getting turnovers, and stopping the pass when it comes to winning the Super Bowl.
The team that scores one more point than the opponent WINS every Championship. Shouldn't care if its offensively generated or defensively generated or special teams generated.
Here's a couple more stats: In the last 20 years the average offensive ranking for the Super Bowl winner has been 13th. The average rank of the defense of the Super Bowl winner is 5th. Now, for those who like "yards" stats. The average rank of the offense in terms to passing yards was 20th. The average rank in offense in terms of rushing yards was 7th. Good defense and being able to run the ball = Super Bowl wins.
Yes! Did you just understand that part? Points come out of the passing game so if you want to win you have to be better at passing than your opponent. That means both passing and stopping the pass. It also includes not throwing interceptions and getting them yourself, that's part of passing efficiency. Every team that has won has been good in those areas. The other areas like running the ball and stopping the run or your performance on STs are complements, they help but they are not as critical as passing more efficiently than your opponents. Also its too broad to say the whole defense b/c there have been many examples of teams that didn't stop the run as well but still won. The part of the defense that is critical is the part that stops the pass.
Of course I understood what passing efficiency was from the begining. I was making a point, yet you still don't seem to understand it. Basically, passing efficiency has a lot to do with what the defense gives you. Of course a good QB and a good set of WR's will mean better passing efficiency. However, which matters most? Well, the STATS dictate that a great defense will shut down a great offense more times than a great offense will overcome a great defense. See 2011 post season games between Patriots (#1 offense) against the Jets (#6 defense) or Falcons (#5 offense) against the Packers (#1 defense) or Colts(#4 offense) against the Jets (#6 defense) or Eagles (#3 offense) against the Packers (#1 defense). Those examples are from just THIS season, so far. These examples are the norm and not the exception.
No, the stats show that passing more efficiently than your opponents is the only commonality that every single champion since 1940 has shared. Its not just about your QB and WRs. It includes your ability to stop the pass as well. That's why a team with a lesser QB like the Ravens can win a championship b/c their pass defense made their opponent's QB even less efficient than theirs. Likewise, a team like the Colts with a great QB could still win despite having a defense that couldn't stop the run. Their pass defense wasn't great, but it was good enough that opposing QBs were less efficient than their own QB. See it doesn't matter how you get there. You could have a great pass offense, great pass defense or somewhere in between. All that matters in the end is that your passing was more efficient than your opponents. This has been true 100% of the time. Everything else, running, stopping the run, STs, defense alone, offense alone, etc., you have exceptions for.
