Defense wins championships?

[7upnext]

I mean, they can't stink outright during a playoff run, but here are some less than stellar defenses, by the age old YPG allowed standard, that have recently won Super Bowls.

Indy stunk pretty much across the board, but they played impotent offenses in the playoffs, save for NE, whom they beat in a shootout.


2001 NE: 24th YPG, 6th PPG, T-9th FR, 6th INTs


2006 IND: 21st YPG, 23rd PPG, T-17th FR, 20th INTs


2009 NO: 25th YPG, 20th PPG, T-5th FR, 3rd INTs


2011 NYG: 27th YPG, 25th PPG, T-7th FR, T-6th INTs


Which brings us to this unit. If this offense keeps putting up 30 and the defense plays to these averages, this could end really well.


2015 PIT: 23rd YPG, 11th PPG, T-6th FR, T-6th INTs

YPG is not a great indicator of defense making this a hard point to make. Lots of teams like NO and IND scored so much that they would inevitably give up lots of yards in garbage time. The other three teams were pretty stout and not bad defenses in the slightest.

The Steelers have as good an offense as any of those teams. But their defense is worse than all but the Colts. If the Steelers luck out and face a terrible SB team like CHI was that year they have a chance. It'd have to be NFC East winner for that to happen imo. Stranger things have happened though.

[feltdizz]

No scheme will work with old players, regardless of how well they know the defense. I'm not sure I'd call this defense "working", what I will say about this defense is that they are making big plays at the right time (which is something the aging defense could not do) and that helps to hide quite a few warts.

Pappy

when the players age, the scheme should be adjusted.