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Key to the Ring

DolfinDave

DolfinDave

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In the midst of trying to convince people that QBs alone or even good offenses don't win Super Bowls by themselves, I found something interesting that is pretty obvious. Since 1986, (I only went back 20 years cause I was tired of searching) every team that has won the Super Bowl has been in the top 10 in poinits allowed. I'm almost positive this holds true for almost every year.

The obvious thing is that defense wins championships. Even the Rams of 99 were top 10 in points allowed. Marino had top 10 defenses for only 5 years out of his 16. Two of them at the end of his career when he clearly was not himself and still had no running game. Airing it out and putting up a lot of points is nice and you can't have a terrible offense to win. But its clear that without a good defense, you will have a tough time winning it all.

The point is that if this Dolphins team, or the ones in the near future, want to win Super Bowls, the defense has to get better. The last two years we have been 15 and 20 in points allowed. Those really good defenses of the Wanny era are almost gone and the parts still remaining are getting old. Our secondary is young and mostly unproven. I think that is why Coach Saban has been drafting a lot of defensive players. He realizes that a strong defense is the key to winning it all. Our offense should continue to develop and improve with Culpepper. And it is fun to watch and see how good he could be. But if we want rings, the defense is the thing to be concerned about.
 
dplunk said:
In the midst of trying to convince people that QBs alone or even good offenses don't win Super Bowls by themselves, I found something interesting that is pretty obvious. Since 1986, (I only went back 20 years cause I was tired of searching) every team that has won the Super Bowl has been in the top 10 in poinits allowed. I'm almost positive this holds true for almost every year.

The obvious thing is that defense wins championships. Even the Rams of 99 were top 10 in points allowed. Marino had top 10 defenses for only 5 years out of his 16. Two of them at the end of his career when he clearly was not himself and still had no running game. Airing it out and putting up a lot of points is nice and you can't have a terrible offense to win. But its clear that without a good defense, you will have a tough time winning it all.

The point is that if this Dolphins team, or the ones in the near future, want to win Super Bowls, the defense has to get better. The last two years we have been 15 and 20 in points allowed. Those really good defenses of the Wanny era are almost gone and the parts still remaining are getting old. Our secondary is young and mostly unproven. I think that is why Coach Saban has been drafting a lot of defensive players. He realizes that a strong defense is the key to winning it all. Our offense should continue to develop and improve with Culpepper. And it is fun to watch and see how good he could be. But if we want rings, the defense is the thing to be concerned about.
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I could not agree with you more. Notice also that when the phins had a defense that was ranked high in yrds and or pts that they went deeper in the playoffs when Dan was around. Any guys that people argue are better than Dan because of rings they played on teams that had defenses that were generally ranked top 3 in one of the two catergories. Those teams also were generally dynasties, Montana with 9ers, those Dallas teams all had the #1 defense. No player in football was so much better than the 2nd best player at their position than Marino. Thats why he's simply the best football player ever. Not best QB, best football player. I get tired of the needed a RB argument too. A RB is offense. If you have Dan you have plenty of offense already. What he needed was one year to have a legit top defense. I think that 94 season and the season we lost to Buffalo in the AFC title game we had like a top 10 D. Sure a RB would help the D because of rest but its not as important to the phins winning when we had Dan. And that St.Louis teams D ranking in points allowed was aided by the fact that they often led by 2 and 3 scores, which once you get up that much and its the second half your pass rush can pin its ears because your opponent is one dimensional. Thats a big help. Any positive aspect of your team makes the others stronger as does a negative, say the LB's we had in SB XIX, makes the rest of your team weaker. Poor LB's hurt our offense because they put us in a huge hole by giving up chunks of yrds to Craig and the 9ers TE's.
 
Yeah in 84, the 9ers had the number 1 ranked defense and a decent running game. Throughout Marino's career, he had 10 different guys lead the team in rushing for a year. That is not consistency. A running game is not so much the yardage as it is a commintment to running the ball. That certainly helps a defense when you can pound it out and take time off the clock. Running the ball and stopping the run are the foundations of a good football team.
 
WVdolphan said:
I could not agree with you more. Notice also that when the phins had a defense that was ranked high in yrds and or pts that they went deeper in the playoffs when Dan was around. Any guys that people argue are better than Dan because of rings they played on teams that had defenses that were generally ranked top 3 in one of the two catergories. Those teams also were generally dynasties, Montana with 9ers, those Dallas teams all had the #1 defense. No player in football was so much better than the 2nd best player at their position than Marino. Thats why he's simply the best football player ever. Not best QB, best football player. I get tired of the needed a RB argument too. A RB is offense. If you have Dan you have plenty of offense already. What he needed was one year to have a legit top defense. I think that 94 season and the season we lost to Buffalo in the AFC title game we had like a top 10 D. Sure a RB would help the D because of rest but its not as important to the phins winning when we had Dan. And that St.Louis teams D ranking in points allowed was aided by the fact that they often led by 2 and 3 scores, which once you get up that much and its the second half your pass rush can pin its ears because your opponent is one dimensional. Thats a big help. Any positive aspect of your team makes the others stronger as does a negative, say the LB's we had in SB XIX, makes the rest of your team weaker. Poor LB's hurt our offense because they put us in a huge hole by giving up chunks of yrds to Craig and the 9ers TE's.
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Jerry Rice is the greatest football player of all time, but thats another story for another day

and

The thing about a running game is it allows you to rest your defense, sure Dan can throw the ball all over and score 40 pts but chances are your defense will be so tired they will give up 41. You can still win games like that and your defense wont always falter, but its a lot harder to win with no running game
 
well i hafta agree but the thing i've noticed over the past few years is that you need an elite QB to be a consistent contender.. and more specifically.......... that most playoff teams seem to have a former high 1st rounder under center. Defense is ofcourse a necessity, but sometimes your D is only as good as the QB managing the game. I remember when our D was at its peak a few years ago and the majority of the time opposing teams scored was off of turnovers.
 
The two posterchild teams this decade on how to win a superbowl through defense are the Bucs and Ravens IMO

They had almost nothing that resembled an offense but damn they could play D
 
AirChambers84 said:
well i hafta agree but the thing i've noticed over the past few years is that you need an elite QB to be a consistent contender.. and more specifically.......... that most playoff teams seem to have a former high 1st rounder under center. Defense is ofcourse a necessity, but sometimes your D is only as good as the QB managing the game. I remember when our D was at its peak a few years ago and the majority of the time opposing teams scored was off of turnovers.
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I'm not bashing you or saying you are totally wrong. But what about Big Ben last year and guys like Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer? I wouldn't call them elite QBs. Could it be that guys like Brady and Montana get to be considered great QBs because they run their offense well (not great) while their defense shuts down their opponents? QBs are great when they hand the ball off to a consistent running game and let their defense not score more points than them. That is why I agree with one of the above posts that Marino is not a great QB, but flat out one of the greatest players ever. He had neither and still found a way to win consistently.
 
It's more than just a great D or great O or great QB. It has to be the right combination of all of the elements on a team to win the championship. Even the Ravens of a few years ago could get enough done on offense (even if the D contributed a lot of points) to win games. It's not like they won games by scoring in the last minute. They scored enough to keep opposing teams needing to score themselves and that's where the D took over. The Bucs offense could score. The same could be said about the Fins and Steelers of the 70's. It takes the entire 53 man unit being good enough together to be better than the rest. The Steelers of last year had a tough time offensively, but their D held teams enough that they could win games. It's too early to tell how good our team is really going to be. In fact, we could have a worse record and still be a 'better' team. The fact is that the road is tough for us because we are integrating a new secondary and a new QB with an established DL and improving OL together. It may take a couple of more years and between now and then, we'll have to worry about replacing the DL, clearly our strength. We have reason for higher expectations. Last year we didn't expect to see a 9-7 record. This year I personally expect at best a 9-7, but I expect us to be a better team.
 
good pressure from the front 7 will cover up our deficiencies in the secondary. this the key imo. the offense will be fine considering the soft schedule
 
I think that the reason strong defensive teams have dominated the SB teams is because playoff teams that depend on defense to win games get into the habit of playing virtually mistake-free football while taking advantage of opponents' mistakes during the season, and that's exactly the kind of football that wins in the playoffs.
 
Agree that a strong D is needed. The defense can score points on turnovers and shut the opponent down.
 
i think our D looks very good i mean our defensive line is amazing and that allows you to do so much i mean it puts constant pressure on the QB and it helps the linebackers keep the big uglys off them when they try to blitz and it helps the DB's because the line puts pressure on the QB which gives him less time to throw and less time for our DB's to get burned. but it our defense is gonna be 1 of the top D's we need our secondary to be very good.
 
KC would most likely have atleast been to or close to the SB if they had a top 10 defense. That's one team who is an example of being great offensively but horrible defensively. Others are Minnesota a few years back when they only lost 1 regular season game then get beat by the Falcons. Ofcourse Indy. although their defense was great last season but lost a game they should have won if it wasn't for Big Ben's game-saving tackle.
 
dplunk said:
I think that is why Coach Saban has been drafting a lot of defensive players. He realizes that a strong defense is the key to winning it all. Our offense should continue to develop and improve with Culpepper. And it is fun to watch and see how good he could be. But if we want rings, the defense is the thing to be concerned about.
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That is correct. When he took over for Jim Bates, the two sat down together and amongst other things discussed the future of the franchise. Bates told him that the team was close offensively but needed an infusion of talent on defense. Many people on message boards actually scoffed at that notion, but it has proven to be pretty prophetic.
 
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