Looks like elite offenses dont win championships

[mikesteelnation1]

I read a pretty good article today. It's premise, which is backed up with stats and tons of facts, is this: having a great, best ever offense means zero in the big picture to winning the lombardi. Less than 25% of the 53 best offenses in the history of the league won a championship.

Here's the link:

http://coldhardfootballfacts.com/Art...r_put_out.html

As they point out in the article, balance is king. However I'd shade towards a great defense yields more championships than a great offense. That's just my conjecture, but considering how poorly the great offenses have done, it seems a smart bet. I'm hoping they do a similar comparison about the best defenses..

Even in this age of offensive proliferation, the best offenses still stall in the big games.

Perhaps defense still does win championships??

[vancemeek]

Hard to compare championships today with ones from the 70s. Also, how many of the 53 best defenses won? And what criteria was used to determine the best offenses. If you go back to the early days defenses were more likely to win, but nowadays, the Colts, Saints, Pats, Packers, even Steelers have had great offenses, and all but the Steelers were led by their offense.

[iwatt]

Perhaps defense still does win championships??

Balanced teams win championships. Football is still played on both sides of the line, new rules not-withstanding. A team that can only impact the game half the time is not going to win it all.

The elite offenses that have won it all have had at least one of the following: a great pass rusher or an oportunistic secondary. Of course that makes you have a better defense, not the crappy excuses the Patriots and Saints had last year, that had to be schemed up to be competent. And when you have an elite pass-rush, a great secondary or great DL coupled with an elite offense, you get a dynasty. Steelers in the 70s, 49ers in the 80s and the Cowboys in the 90s all had that.

So did the early ought Patriots. They had game changers on Defense and a HoF QB. So do the late ought Steelers, with an elite QB and game changers on D.

But traditional powerhouse defensive teams like the Ravens and Jets these last eyars can't win because though the D can hold it's own, their offenses can't.

Balance wins championships.

[packa7x]

Balanced teams win championships. Football is still played on both sides of the line, new rules not-withstanding. A team that can only impact the game half the time is not going to win it all.

Exactly. The Packers lost last year because our team was too heavily favored towards offense. In 2010, we had a great offense AND defense and won. The Bears lost in 2006 because Sexy Rexy wasn't up to snuff.

[iwatt]

Exactly. The Packers lost last year because our team was too heavily favored towards offense. In 2010, we had a great offense AND defense and won. The Bears lost in 2006 because Sexy Rexy wasn't up to snuff.

The greatest Anomalies have been the 2000 ravens, which had one of the most ridiculous defenses in the history of the game, coupled with the fact that the AFC wasn't that strong that year. They still had an elite running game (Jamal Lewis AND Priest Holmes!!!) and a coach not afraid to bend his ego as an offensive genius and just play keep away. That run defense forced other teams to play one dimensional football, and predictability will kill you in football. They also had fortune in that though they faced a good QB in McNair, but in a run first offense. Who knows how they would have fared if the Vikings or Rams had been there in the end. They had the best possible matchup in a run first team like the Giants.

[packa7x]

Exactly, 1999 Rams are the only insane offense that won as well. Still both teams had some semblance of offense or defense.

[darvon]

The article trashes the concept that "Great Offenses Win Championships." Some here counter "Great Defenses Win Championships". Others claim "Balance Wins Championships".

I say you are all wrong.

I claim "Nothing Wins Championships".

Let me explain. When we talk about "Great Offenses/D/Balance wins Championships" what we are really saying is that some feature of the entire regular season will give a high correlation with who wins the Championship that season. We will see that correlation as high enough that we will assume causality.

The NFL playoffs have two characteristics which make this impossible. Variance and Variability. The talent is so close in the NFL that the simple variance in a teams game production will be enough to change who advances. The old "If they played it 10 times, Team A would win 6." For any regular season characteristic you can name, Best Offense, Best Defense, Most Balanced, Cutest Cheerleaders, one of those teams (A or B) will be BEST of the two and the other Less. So for any characteristic, you are going to get an exception 4 times out of 10 or 3 times out of 10 (or in the case of Broncos/Steelers 1 time out of 1 Gadzillion). Cascade that throught 4 rounds of Playoffs and the Champion NEVER will be blatantly apparent by any regular season metric with any consistancy.


In addition, winning and losing in the NFL is GREATLY dependant on HEALTH, which varies from week to week. Any characteristic determined over the 17 weeks of the regular season can be highly different with the different HEALTH of the playoffs. Indy won when Bob Saunders came back from the dead. Pats lost when Gronk got sprained. The Champion is HIGHLY dependent on HEALTH not associated with the Regular Season.

So there is NO Regular Season characteristic that has any reasonable correlation with Championships. "Nothing Wins Championships."

[iwatt]

darvon: if you are good on only one side of the ball, you are much more vulnerable to variance if it hits you there. a good D will carry a great QB having a bad day, and the same the other way.

The likelihood of having a bad game on both sides of the ball is much lower than that of having one side play poorly or be overmatched. hence why balance wins championship.

[Dave Lapham]

The teams in this past Super Bowl had miserable seasons statistically on defense during the regular season. The Pats were 31st in yards allowed but a much more rewspectale 15th in points allowed. The NY Giants were 27th in yards permitted and 25th in points given up. They both played at a higher level defensively in the playoffs. Offensively NE was 2nd in yards accumulated and 3rd in points scored. The Giants finished 8th in total yards per game and 9th in scoring. Based on regular season performance defense didn't win a championship this past season.....offensive success was a bigger factor. I agree balance on both sides of the football in the run and pass game will win you the big game.

[toolkien]

Then how did the Saints win it in 2009? Great Offense, mediocre defense that took the ball away. How did the Colts win it in 2006 with one of their shoddier defenses of that mid-2000's era?

Both the Ravens and Steelers had nice defenses in 2011, while the juggernaut Giants gave up 400 points, and 6000 yards of their own, during the regular season. How did that happen? Some Packer fans are running for the torches and pitchforks giving up 6,500 yards. I guess the 500 yard difference for a season is what did it.

What wins the championship these days, for those who haven't taken the time, IS TURNOVER MARGIN. 9 of the last 12 SB champions won the playoff turnover margin, and the other 3 were #2 in margin. In the last six years, two offensively skewed teams have won the Super Bowl (Saints, Colts), a defensively skewed team (Steelers), a potent and balanced team (Packers), and a mediocre but balanced team (the Giants twice). Pretty much a mixed bag for anyone to see. The one common element? FIVE (Giants X 2, Packers, Colts, and Saints) WON THE TURNOVER MARGIN. The Steelers were second to the Cardinals, but won anyway, and ironically it was the 100 yard INT return to end the first half that killed the Cardinals and offset their very possible win by being #1 in turnover margin by giving up a turnover of the nut crushing variety.

And PLEASE Packer fans understand that it was the OFFENSE that scored significantly less points, dropped the ball routinely, AND TURNED THE BALL OVER FOUR TIMES, that lost the game for the Packers (and of course contributed nicely to the Giants securing the all important playoff turnover margin in 2011). The Packer defense was mediocre in 2011, but really didn't deviate from that standard in the playoff loss, it was the offense crashing in that game that did it.

In general, NFL fans need to understand that potent and balanced just doesn't exist much anymore (20 of 382 teams in the last 12 years were (5%), diminishing down to about 1% in the last two years). Teams are either skewed to the offense or defense (probably in an attempt to ensure post season berths, the urgency of which might disappear once the league inevitably goes to 16 berths) or are balanced but mediocre, battling all the other mass of mediocre teams for the last few slots. But regardless of how teams get there, winning the turnover margin is the most important key. And they come in all varieties as of late in getting that accomplished. In any event, whatever a team does in the regular season, no matter what model they employ, they have to properly sustain it in the playoffs or expect to washout.

And the Packers did. Half the Packer fan base seems to have Ted Thompson hoisted halfway onto the hot seat even though the Packers are arguably the best team in the NFL the last three years combined. The offense, in 2009 and 2011 playoffs, has/had decided to turn the ball over consistently putting the team at a disadvantage when it mattered most. It is pretty much the same formula the Packers have been employing the last decade plus - a top team in the regular season, depending on turnover margin, only to have the offense decide single elimination is the perfect time to turn the ball over 4,5,6, or 7 times. And then the myopically ignorant crowd howls for radical solutions to the wrongly defined problem(s) (e.g. those who have Thompson hoisted halfway to that hot seat). The Packers D does need to improve to some extent, but the Packers most certainly could have won the Super Bowl as they were. Get a D between 2010 and 2011 with their offense? And that can be accomplished without Ted Thompson firing his old "unacceptable" formula and suddenly caving in to the Big Splash ways of teams that constantly do just that and get no where (Cowboys, Redskins, the 2011 Eagles).