By: Ryan Welte
THE OPINION COLUMN
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Do Defenses Still Win Championships?
There are just 8 teams left in the race to the Super Bowl. Here comes the annual annoying statement: "Defenses Win Championships!" If this weren't a magazine and instead, a radio show, than you would hear me read that in a weak, annoying, depressing, child voice. This is because it is simply no longer the case in the NFL. Football has changed and is now an offensively dominated sport.
This should be read in a old man, low pitched, Patrick Star kind of voice: "But the 8 teams left were all in the top 12 NFL Defenses this season!"
Yes, that is extremely rare. Of the recent Super Bowl Champions, have been some poor defenses. I think the last time that we can say that a defense lead a team to their Super Bowl victory would be Ray Lewis' 2000 Baltimore Ravens.
Last year's matchup between the Giants and Patriots featured the 27th and 31st worst defenses, and the 2nd and 8th best offenses,
If the NFL was reset and teams had to draft the players out one-by-one, there wouldn't be a defensive player until
at least the second round, and maybe the 3rd. The great NFL teams of today have #1 a good QB and #2 a good coach. Even decent defenses are not necessary.
This year we have Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan, Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, Joe
Flacco, Colin Kaepernick, and Matt Schaub. That is a good list.
As the NFL moves into a type of game where any big hit is a penalty and touching the QB's head is a flag, defenses will become even more irrelevant to the outcome of games.
Defenses dominated in the 1900's, but we need to get past that. It is 2013 now, and it is an offensive game now.