I'll take elite defense. Brady has proven 2 years in a row that he can be beaten by one in the playoffs..... and right now the road to the SB goes through Brady if you're in the AFCE.

Plus, if your "elite" QB goes down, you're screwed. If you lose a player on your elite defense, it's still likely to be pretty damn good. Not to mention, it's a lot easier to move up to draft an elite QB when you have an elite defense than it is to draft an entire defense once you have an elite QB.

 

Really depends on the quarterback. If your quarterback is someone like Ben or Flacco, I'll take the average offense / elite defense. If it's Brady, Manning, Brees or Rodgers, I'll take elite offense / average defense. Though Rodgers' team has one of the top defenses.. which is why they will likely win the Super Bowl again.

 

Checks these two links out, then get back to me about elite offense, average defense
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Miami_Dolphins_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Miami_Dolphins_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Buffalo_Bills_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Buffalo_Bills_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Buffalo_Bills_season
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Buffalo_Bills_season

 

You only need look at the past 2 superbowl winners to know that the answer has to be elite offense.

The rules favor the offense. It's been the trend since 2005. I'm sure folks will talk about the 2000 Ravens here and other defensive powerhouses before 2005, but you have to look at the recent trend, because it's the direction the NFL is going. The NFL wants passing, and it wants big name QBs in the superbowl. 3 yards and a cloud of dust doesn't sell.

Also, there's this - A great offense helps a defense play better. When you can put points on the board, your defense can pin it's ears back and go after the QB as they know the team is in catch up mode. Teams playing from behind are also more likely to make mistakes. The only thing a defense can do for an offense is field position. If you stink on offense, your defense can do nothing to help with offense in terms of helping with play calling.

 

:crapstrom:

 

Offense sells tickets, defense wins championships.

 

I feel like mediocre defenses breed poor defensive play in clutch situations because of how tight and how worried about screwing up they have to play. I think of all those Fins teams in the JJ/Wanny era that were excellent but would collapse late with alarming frequency. I also think good offenses energize an average defense and allow them to worry less about screwing up. We've tried elite defense and average offense for most of the last two decades. It's time to try something different. If nothing else, good offense is way more fun to watch.

 

Tell that to the Saints and the Packers. Again, we're talking about post 2005. To say defense wins championships is completely ignoring recent trends and rule changes. Every year the league makes it harder on defenses and easier on offenses.

 

Years ago I would go with the better defense,today with the way everything is set up for the offense I feel you have to have to better there.

 

Yup. And there are fans on this board, and even some idiot GMs in this league [cough]IRELAND[/cough] who will write it off as a trend, or blip on the radar and continue trying to do things the Parcellian way.

But this is no passing (no pun intended) trend. Offense sells. The NFL realizes this. Cash is king.

 

In today's NFL you have to pick the elite offense/ avg. defense. That being said, it is simplistic and wrong to think most of our offensive woes are on Henne. He's not an elite QB, so if we can add an elite QB we should, but he's been good enough to win with.

 

I think you need an elite offense with atleast an elite safety and elite linebacker rest of defense avg.

 

I actually thought the play calling in Cleveland was poor so I would say Cleveland was mostly on Daboll.

But an elite QB is something you just don't pass up on. We can all see the difference in the Colts without Manning. And I think Luck is a better prospect than Manning was coming out.

 

The elite O in a heartbeat providing the D is truly average and not like the mess we had with Marino.

 

sounds like the cardinals of a couple of years ago. ill take it

 

I voted other.

While you can win with either an elite O or elite D with avg. counterparts on the other side of the ball, I'd prefer we finally build a complete team.

We've had the elite O and no defense and a top defense with no O.
In both instances the immense weakness on the other side of the team KILLED us in big games and destroyed opportunities at championships.


We killed Dan Marino's career and a top defense Jimmy Johnson gave us building one sided teams.

Obviously your never going to create an instance where both sides of the ball are elite but you have to have talent on both sides of the ball that can change a game.

 

I'd add a pass rusher there.

If you have a ballhawking safety to cover up secondary miscues along with someone that can bring pressure against opposing QB's you at least have a chance to make game changing plays. Good passrushers are key in this league now.

 

http://espn.go.com/espn/commentary/...ne-top-alarming-first-week-pass-happy-offense

This is an article Michael Wilbon wrote after that Pats/Phins game that gets into some of the changes of the game lately. If you aren't attempting to maximize the changes, you are intentionally and needlessly hurting your team. Football doesn't have a handicap, there is no bonus points for difficulty. The game has changed, like it or not. It is something that a lot of people are failing to recognize I think.

 

Add an elite pass-rusher and you've got the recipe for a lot of recent Superbowl champions.

 

It's the 21st Century, so I'd pick Elite Offense/Average Defense. Look where an Elite Defense/Average Offense has gotten the Jets and Ravens the past two seasons.

However, I would love a complete team on all sides of the ball. Let's not forget Special Teams, it cost the Chargers the playoffs last season even though they had the top Defense and Offense.

 

During the Marino era, the Dolphins had an elite offense and an average to bad defense. This led to a lot of scoring and excitement on the offensive side of the ball but never led to a Super Bowl Championship. As has been pointed out though, today the game is geared toward the great offenses winning the Super Bowls. So I will have to go with the majority and select elite offense and an average defense.

 

Damn, I lost it!! :tantrum:

Not going to type it all out again. DAMN IT!!! I'll just tell you this...

Look up the elite defensive stats of both Pittsburgh and Green Bay last year, then look up their average offensive stats...the result of that Super Bowl was conducive to their team stats

Then

Look up the elite defensive stats of Pittsburgh for the 2008 season, the pitiful defensive stats of the Cardinals...oh, and just for fun, look up their elite offensive stats and tell me...who won that Super Bowl again???

The game hasn't passed me by boys. I'm just wise enough to have a broader knowledge of football than you younger kids whose only source of information is listening to Chris Berman commentating on WR "X", "He could...go..all...the....way".

Reading is fundamental guys. :up:

 

That didn't work out too well for Arizona during the '08 season, whose offense was ranked 4th in the NFL versus, the Steelers number one rated defense in Super Bowl XLVIII

 

They lost by 3 to a team that had an overall better team...

 

Awwww, here we go with the "yea, but..."

Gee, I thought you guys had been beating the drum of an elite offense over an elite defense? I give you an example from no more than three years ago of that exact match up and Kurt Warner's 4th ranked offense wasn't able to beat Pittsburgh number 1 ranked defense.

I shoot a hole in you guys' soapbox, causing that opinion to come crashing down and completely invalidate it and yet..."well uh...uh...", hemming and hawing.

Even LAST year's Super Bowl. Green Bay's offense, ranked 10th. Pittsburgh offense, ranked 12th. Pittshburgh defense, ranked 1st. Green Bay's defense, ranked 2nd. Final score? 31-25 Green Bay...the game changer that gave Green bay the edge? not Aaron Rodgers, but Nick Collins interception of Roethlisberger and returned for a touchdown.

Take away that pick 6 by Collins, Pittsburgh wins by 1 point. DEFENSE won that championship for Green Bay, not offense.

 

How are those defenses doing this year, with the exact same personnel?

 

I'm sorry, I thought the endstate was who won the Super Bowl at the end of the season. Are we there yet? NO!!!

I provided examples of recent seasons (last year being the most) to illustrate my point.

If thou must haveth examples from this season, I'll give you just one...
Baltimore vs NYJ yesterday. Joe Flacco goes 10/31 for 163 yards, with no TDs and 1 int...and a PATHETIC QB rating of 37.4...and the Ravens won by 17 points due to...THREE defensive touchdowns!!!

Hell, Henne's not had a game that horrible this year and we...oh yea..that's right...we're winless. You can look up other examples for yourself.

Tell you what...just for fun, I'll give one elite offensive example...
Oh wait...here's an offensive example of a juggernaut performance...Michael Vick threw for 416 yards...and ran for another 75 and the Eagels...oh wait...no, they lost. Hmmm, how can an offensive juggernaut lose???

Hmmmm, I can think of...off the top of my head...4 games in which the quarterback threw for over 400 yards offense and uh...they haven't won yet. :wink2:

 

The offense scored 24 points. Without those 24 points, that pick 6 is window dressing in a beatdown.

 

And the Steelers scored 25 points. Without that pick 6, Green Bay's 10th ranked offense would have lost to Pittsburgh's 12th ranked offense...and to their number one ranked defense...

You know what...you "kids" are arguing just to argue. You're wrong, you know you'r wrong, but you just keep going and going and going with the "nut uh"'s with nothing to back yup your points.

Brush your teeth and go to bed!

 

The problem with this thread is that right answer is not offense or defense. The biggest change in the NFL is that it has become more of a passing league. That means that to win you have to pass and stop the pass. Right now we're losing primarily b/c our pass D is horrid. Our passing isn't great, but it's good enough if our pass D was just good enough. That doesn't mean you ignore the run, but it does mean that if you look at the teams that succeed, they all pass better than their opponents (and win the turnover battle). Some run well some don't. Some stop the run well, some don't. But they all pass better than their opponents and win the turnover battle.

 

Yes, and if the Baltimore Ravens actually made a Super Bowl in the last 8 years, then you would have a point. Winning a regular season game isn't the point, the point is to win championships.

As it stands, nobody has made a Super Bowl in the last 8 years from the AFC without an elite QB.

But really, my main point regarding PIT and GB, is that while they had decent defenses last year, you can't rely on having a great defense year after year. There is much greater variance in defensive performance than offensive performance. The Miami Dolphins are a great example of this.

 

You DO know that in your favorite '08 example Pitt needed a Big Ben-Holmes toetip TD connection to beat the Cardinals after your vaunted Steeler's D gave up a long late TD to Fitzgerald right?

 

Problem with your example is that Ben is a damn good QB in his own right, and Pittsburgh was throwing the **** out of the ball that entire season. Pittsburgh ended the game with a dramatic drive on offense highlighted by a great pass for a TD.

OFFENSE.

 

There are obviously going to be an exception, even in the NFL of today. Yet the fact is that the rules of the NFL strongly favor the offense and therefore the majority of the time today, an outstanding offense is going to be favored to beat an elite defense in a Super Bowl.

 

So that Int that the Saints scored on counts as a offensive TD?......lol

 

Hey, i am older but not senile the days of defence wins championships is over.The bottomline you can't hit anybody anymore and that leaves the defence at a huge disadvantage.I don't like it but i will admit it.
If marino was around in this nfl he would throw 50 tds every year and yes he would have a few rings.

 

lol..........Saints had like the 18th or 20th ranked D that year. Indy's D was nothing spectacular either.

There are certainty's in todays NFL. Elite QB led teams WILL make the playoffs. I can tell you right now that in 2012 the Packers will make the playoffs pending Rogers is healthy.

Can we be certain the Jets will make the playoffs this year? Next year? How about the eagles and their supposed upgraded Defense. How about how the Steelers D looked yesterday?