Can we discuss NFL defense

[Starforever]

Im not wrong. NFL defenses are trash. It’s not a defensive league.

It’s all about the QB and how far the QB can take you. The defense is just an accessory to the QB.

It is an offensive driven league, but defenses still rule the game. There is a difference between good and bad defenses.

 

[Starforever]

There sure as heck isn’t any great defenses. There isn’t a great defense in the entire NFL.

If that were true, the same would apply to the offenses. Does Tampa have a great offense? How about the Bills, 49ers, Bengals, Chiefs, Titans, etc?
What we find is, these teams have great continuity, good coaching, and players that understand game flow. They also have good defensive play.

The DFT, has both, but are lacking the fundamentals of the game. Individual play, missed assignments, and penalties are detrimental to winning.

 

[Captain43Crash]

Great post, OP. Elite QBs can beat top defenses in today's NFL.

And let's be clear about these two special guys, Mahomes and Allen, who are in a separate class for playoff football:

-They have canon arms and are generally accurate
-Are incredibly resourceful and surprisingly accurate on the run
-Can contribute 40-90 yards of rushing, often with high YPC. They are true runners
-Make good decisions
-Both these guys also happen to play on talented, well-rounded teams with good coaching.

Herbert might soon be in the same class as these two.

Dak isn't extremely mobile anymore, nor is Burrow, Carr, Brady, Rogers, Stafford, Cousins.

There are top QBs and then there are these uber-athlete, great QBs. Whew, tough to beat that!

Just like Rogers beat the Whiners.

You don’t know your history, even recent history. Great D almost always beats great O. TB’s very good D, not even great, beat up and manhandled Mahomes and KC in last years Super Bowl!

 

[Jake]

Im not wrong. NFL defenses are trash. It’s not a defensive league.

It’s all about the QB and how far the QB can take you. The defense is just an accessory to the QB.

Tom Brady won a SB by scoring 13 points.

Brady threw 3 picks in the second half of last year's NFCCG. The Bucs held Aaron Rodgers to 6 points off those turnovers.

Mahomes was running for his life in the SB. The Chiefs scored 9 points.

The Niners have won two road playoff games with Jimmy G. They've allowed 27 points, total, in those wins. Their special teams blocked two kicks at GB, swinging the game by 10 points. They won by 3. They also got to the SB 2 years ago with him.

"It's all about the QB" is the laziest attempt at analysis in football, which is why it's so popular. It's the most important position, but it's not the only thing that matters.

 

[DFWJC]

Here are the top15 NFL defenses.


1 Buffalo Bills
2 New England Patriots
3 Denver Broncos
4 New Orleans Saints
5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
6 Tennessee Titans
7 Dallas Cowboys
8 Kansas City Chiefs
9 San Francisco 49ers
10 Indianapolis Colts
11 Arizona Cardinals
12 Seattle Seahawks
13 Green Bay Packers
14 Cleveland Browns
15 Los Angeles Rams


The 3 remaining defenses are nothing special. They aren’t way better than us. They’re all about the same. I don’t know what the Bengals are ranked but they don’t even show up in the top 15.

Can we just admit that this league isn’t built for defenses to be great and whatever you get from a defense is just a bonus.

Josh Allen lit the Chiefs up tonight and we didn’t even score a TD on those guys. That’s how far we are behind when it comes to competing against these type of teams.

So focus on defense all you want. Good luck getting through the playoffs and consistently stoping these top tier QBs.

If we want to win anything it needs to come from the offensive side of the ball. Anything the defense gives is a bonus.

Elite QBs win championships and defenses are just an accessory that you hope performs well.

It’s not the 90s and NFL rules are against teams playing defense.

Rams and 49ers Defenses are now much better than their season rankings

But 3 of the 4 QBs with the top playoff Passer ratings (Mahomes, Stafford, Burrow) are still playing, and Allen isnt there only because his team didnt have the ball 1st in OT and Mahomes was on the other side.

The outlier is Garropollo with his D playing great

 

[kskboys]

They won because they had Tom Brady and they don’t sniff the playoffs without him.

Their defense was along for whatever ride Tom Brady took them on.

They won the super bowl last year because of D. Man, Catchy, you really got this one wrong!!!!

 

[kskboys]

Without a good D, Rams do not beat TB yesterday.

 

[Point-of-the-Star]

Yards allowed us a misleading stat, because Tampa and LAR blow teams out regularly… they give up huge yards in the 4th quarter when their opponent is down by 3 scores (like in week 1).

Here is why they’re still around:

3. Tampa
5. Bengals
6. Rams
7. 9ers


That’s run D. Every team left in the playoffs can make you 1 dimensional, and then has elite pass rushers who can tee off on your QB. We saw Burrow get mauled because they couldn’t run against 2nd ranked run D Tennessee. We saw Rodgers running for his life, Brady bleeding all over the turf. Dallas was 16th.


Cincy said “Let’s make Tannehill beat us.” It worked.

SF said, “Let’s make Dak beat us.” It worked.

Tampa said, “Let’s make Stafford beat us.” And then he proceeded to retire Tom Brady.

Now this is an intelligent and correct assessment IMO.

 

[75boyz]

Tom Brady won a SB by scoring 13 points.

Brady threw 3 picks in the second half of last year's NFCCG. The Bucs held Aaron Rodgers to 6 points off those turnovers.

Mahomes was running for his life in the SB. The Chiefs scored 9 points.

The Niners have won two road playoff games with Jimmy G. They've allowed 27 points, total, in those wins. Their special teams blocked two kicks at GB, swinging the game by 10 points. They won by 3. They also got to the SB 2 years ago with him.

"It's all about the QB" is the laziest attempt at analysis in football, which is why it's so popular. It's the most important position, but it's not the only thing that matters.

Hard to dispute this.
Excellent job.

 

[Seven]

Ive been saying all year NFL defenses are trash. Has nothing to do with Dak.

Alright, genius......what was the FINAL score twixt the Pack and Niners??

I'll give you 10 minutes to look it up due to its obvious you don't WATCH football......

No defense......HACK.

 

[Chuck 54]

I don’t like defensive rankings because it goes by yards usually.
What’s important?

• Yards
• Points
• Turnovers
• 3 & outs vs drives changing field position
• Stops after your team turns it over
• Stops after your team scores
• End of game stops

You just cannot go by yards or even points.
Turnovers cannot be counted on from year to year, but all those turnovers this year changed yards given up and points scored.

I love the improvement our defense made this year, but I think our defense is still pretty bad.

We are not stout up the middle.
We do not set the edge well to stop the edge run or to keep mobile QBs in the pocket.
We don’t push the OL back in the QB’s lap.
We give up too many chunk plays in the run game and through the air.
We give up too many scoring drives to start games and right after our offense scores.
We commit too many penalties, especially 3rd down penalties that bail out the offense.

We need bulk and nastiness inside.
We need LBs badly.
We need to keep improving the secondary and rotational pass rush.

 

[Diehardblues]

Here are the top15 NFL defenses.


1 Buffalo Bills
2 New England Patriots
3 Denver Broncos
4 New Orleans Saints
5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
6 Tennessee Titans
7 Dallas Cowboys
8 Kansas City Chiefs
9 San Francisco 49ers
10 Indianapolis Colts
11 Arizona Cardinals
12 Seattle Seahawks
13 Green Bay Packers
14 Cleveland Browns
15 Los Angeles Rams


The 3 remaining defenses are nothing special. They aren’t way better than us. They’re all about the same. I don’t know what the Bengals are ranked but they don’t even show up in the top 15.

Can we just admit that this league isn’t built for defenses to be great and whatever you get from a defense is just a bonus.

Josh Allen lit the Chiefs up tonight and we didn’t even score a TD on those guys. That’s how far we are behind when it comes to competing against these type of teams.

So focus on defense all you want. Good luck getting through the playoffs and consistently stoping these top tier QBs.

If we want to win anything it needs to come from the offensive side of the ball. Anything the defense gives is a bonus.

Elite QBs win championships and defenses are just an accessory that you hope performs well.

It’s not the 90s and NFL rules are against teams playing defense.

Here’s the actual official NFL rankings from regular season in 2021. Dallas was ranked 19th.

https://www.footballdb.com/stats/teamstat.html?group=d&cat=t

 

[Diehardblues]

And while Elite QB’s provide an easier to build a championship team in Cap era it’s not the only way. How else can we explain The GOAT and the greatest QB this era in NFC getting knocked off .

While great defenses aren’t always the deciding factor in the playoffs against these Elite QB’s they often can be a factor like we saw in Green Bay and Tampa.

We’ve seen great defenses win Championships without Elite QB’s. It’s not the norm but it’s possible. Not every team gets to have an Elite QB. And you build around them best you can.

This narrative in this thread is not only not using or copying the official NFL stats correctly or it’s intention to spin their narrative which isn’t completely true

 

[Diehardblues]

What we see in these playoff games in the closing minutes is these great QB’s forcing their will in clutch situations while the defenses are exhausted.

It doesn’t mean great defenses aren’t needed or a necessity.

In Cap era with few exceptions you need to be great on one side of the ball and average to above average on the other side . You need to be able to protect your QB and pressure theirs. How well you are able to maximize these factors go a long way in determining the outcome.

 

[Diehardblues]

Elite QB’s in cap era have made greater impacts for several reasons. One you simply can’t stockpile talent.

And QB is generally only player teams retain over their entire career. It enables teams to stay on top or contenders longer without as much supporting cast because the contracts for Elite are similar to those less Elite.

What we have also seen is the importance of solid drafts every year as you can’t just rely on a few good draft years to carry you for an era as Cap eventually will chop it up . Which means not as much depth . And why injuries are more costly this era.

We have seen a few examples where generational or top defenses can carry less than Elite QB’s like with Tampa, Baltimore and Philadelphia. And or a QB or team getting hot like with NY. The bad news is with cap you can’t maintain these great defenses and the windows aren’t open long.

While we have seen this the more Elite QB’s dominate and consistent contenders this era we haven’t seen them dominant every year which with the exception of the GOAT no one else has won it all more than twice.

The bottomline is it’s still not easy to win it all even with an Elite QB. Just ask the Packers who for over 25 years had two of the most Elite QB’s of the last two eras with only 1 SB win each.

 

[nate dizzle]

The rules are set up to heavily favor air raid style offenses, cuz chicks dig the longball I guess.

Even the teams that have "top defenses" are prone to huge letdowns due to the way the game is played now. Even as our defense was coming alive during the second half of the season many of us were more concerned about the fact that our offense was backsliding into mediocrity because of this very reason. We knew that when the playoffs rolled around we would be facing teams that can run the ball effectively, score points, and slow down your offense. We knew that our defense was built to be a front runner and being able to gamble on int's and unleash hell on the QB with the pass rush, so if we started slow on offense we'd be in big trouble on that side of the ball. That's exactly what happened.

 

[Diehardblues]

It is an offensive driven league, but defenses still rule the game. There is a difference between good and bad defenses.

Right

And we’d have the best QB’s in the Super Bowl every year . Which just hadn’t been the case.

With the exception of Brady who the Pats usually had close to a top 10 defense to compliment ( when they didn’t is usually when they lost) this Elite QB era we haven’t seen any other Elite QB win more than 2 SB. Most with only 1.

 

[Diehardblues]

Alright, genius......what was the FINAL score twixt the Pack and Niners??

I'll give you 10 minutes to look it up due to its obvious you don't WATCH football......

No defense......HACK.

Yea, this is just more narrative to bash our QB.

Hey , we all wish we had one those Elite QB’s but we don’t like most of the league. You build around them best you can.

 

[DFWJC]

They won the super bowl last year because of D. Man, Catchy, you really got this one wrong!!!!

Tampa Bay doesn't even make the playoffs, let alone win the Super Bowl, without Brady

 

[CowboyRoy]

Here are the top15 NFL defenses.


1 Buffalo Bills
2 New England Patriots
3 Denver Broncos
4 New Orleans Saints
5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers
6 Tennessee Titans
7 Dallas Cowboys
8 Kansas City Chiefs
9 San Francisco 49ers
10 Indianapolis Colts
11 Arizona Cardinals
12 Seattle Seahawks
13 Green Bay Packers
14 Cleveland Browns
15 Los Angeles Rams


The 3 remaining defenses are nothing special. They aren’t way better than us. They’re all about the same. I don’t know what the Bengals are ranked but they don’t even show up in the top 15.

Can we just admit that this league isn’t built for defenses to be great and whatever you get from a defense is just a bonus.

Josh Allen lit the Chiefs up tonight and we didn’t even score a TD on those guys. That’s how far we are behind when it comes to competing against these type of teams.

So focus on defense all you want. Good luck getting through the playoffs and consistently stoping these top tier QBs.

If we want to win anything it needs to come from the offensive side of the ball. Anything the defense gives is a bonus.

Elite QBs win championships and defenses are just an accessory that you hope performs well.

It’s not the 90s and NFL rules are against teams playing defense.

As usual you are completely wrong. Defense is huge, especially in the playoffs. How do you beat an ELITE QB if not with an elite defense?