| On New Year’s Eve, I was probably the only
of-age person on Earth avoiding alcohol, because I had to drive home and work yesterday,
New Year’s Day (so appreciate your print issue of PFW this week, please). At any
rate, it’s amazing the kind of conversations you can have about football with your
drunken (or at least a bit tipsy) friends and other partygoers. So I had some fun with the
old "chicken vs. egg" question of football: Which is more important, offense or
defense? But I disguised the question in the following way. A few weeks ago, I made a
friendly wager with a buddy that the Colts would not beat the Vikings in Week 17. He
insisted that the Colts would stomp the Vikings. I said that the Colts’ defense would
not be able to stop the Vikings’ offense, and the Colts would thus lose. He thought I
was crazy for thinking that — I guess he was right. (He must’ve been, as I
thought my Wildcats would give the Cornhuskers a run for their money at least.)
On New Year’s Eve, one day after the Colts had lost to the Dolphins because their
defense couldn’t stop Lamar Smith, I brought up the Colts’ playoff loss to him,
with our other friends listening. I asked him what happened. He fell silent. I then said,
"I told you the Colts weren’t going very far. I was surprised to see them get
where they were."
Then, to see what kind of response I would get, I said something to the effect of:
"In fact, I’m happy both the Colts and Rams are out of the playoffs, because
neither team deserved to be in to begin with! Their defenses couldn’t stop me if I
played football." (Seriously, I wasn’t drinking.)
Well, this remark elicited plenty of shocked, even angry, responses from those in
attendance, all of whom know my occupation. None of them really are Colts or Rams fans,
but their argument was this: How can you say such things when both teams’ offenses
are just so, so good?
My response was: If the offenses are "so, so good," then why didn’t they
win the game? My answer: because neither team has a good defense. Period. Defense wins
games and Super Bowls. Look at the teams that are left. Most of the teams got where they
are on their defensive strength. Only Oakland and Minnesota have an offense ranked higher
than its defense. In fact, Tennessee and Baltimore, the Nos. 1 and 2 overall defenses,
square off this Sunday.
More evidence comes from last year’s Super Bowl. The high-flying Rams offense met
the grounded Titans defense. The Titans were able to hold the Rams to 23 points in the
game, despite losing the game. This after the Rams set nearly every possible record for
offense in a season.
A stellar offense doesn’t mean you are going to run away with every game —
especially in this day and age. Nowadays, it seems that the best defense against losing
games is to have a great defense and an above-average offense that can put up just enough
points to win without making killer mistakes. Heck, you can even have an offense that gets
you into field-goal range and sputters, so long as you have a Matt Stover or Martin
Gramatica on your team to kick you to a win.
So don’t be surprised if you see Minnesota and Oakland lose next week, I told my
friends. They laughed at me for that one too. I don’t truly believe Minnesota will
lose until it faces the Titans in the Super Bowl, but I think Miami has a decent shot at
knocking off Oakland this week.
But again, in this era of parity in the NFL, it’s really tough to tell who will do
what each week. So, if anyone tells you they know who’s going to win it all,
they’ve obviously been celebrating 2001 a bit too much and need to put down the
bottle. Once they do that, you can tell them a strong defense will win the Super Bowl.
That will leave them six teams from which to choose. |
