I love Defense (and Special Teams) - jugganott's Blog

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jugganott's Blog

I love Defense (and Special Teams)

Posted on September 6, 2010 at 05:47 PM.

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To be plain and simple with it, I would rather have a great Defense and Special Teams than Offense in the game of Football

A great Defense...it means everything to me. If I had to build a team it would be through Defense and Special Teams. Why? Well, it's many reasons. I'm one of those guys that believes Defense and Special Teams wins championships. Not always, but in many instances I would like to believe that's the case.

Defense and Special Teams can help build momentum, and more importantly...they can STOP or STEAL momentum. How many times have you witnessed a defense make a GREAT offense go three and out on their twenty yard line, forcing them to punt. When the ball gets kicked to the good punt return player on the good special teams, it's a good return putting a average offense in great position to score. Even if it's a field goal. The offense gets the ball back and the GREAT defense does the same thing...hold the great offense down to get the ball back.

Some will argue, what happens when your offense is not good enough to score, where an average defense can stop them. Pfft..no problem, that's when you get into playing field position wars with the other team. Yep...if you have a good punter you can pin a the other team down and try to hold them on their side of the field. The offense doesn't play as free, and the playbook is pretty slim when a team is playing with their backs to the endzone. Pressure..that's what good/great defenses do. They create a great deal of pressure. The type of pressure that can create F.E.A.R., and fear is a False Education Appearing Real. In the football world they call it, Seeing Ghosts. Or anticipating a result that might not happen because of that F.E.A.R. We see it all the time.

One of the things with a great offense is that sometimes they require a great deal of timing, not so with a great defense. Now I'm not saying that a Defense doesn't need timing, but for the most part...they don't. A great offense plays differently depending on the playing field. If it's muddy, pouring down raining, snow, or even if it's an away game where the crowd is just deafening and the QB can't communicate with the Offensive Line or Wideouts. Not so with a Defense or special teams.

A great defense controls the line of scrimmage, making plays on the offenses side for crucial tackles for loss. Or again, they are creating pressure on the QB. Yep...now lets get to why that is important. The QB is the HEAD of ALL offenses, like it or not. He does not have to be an ELITE QB, but in most instances he will be elite. Now how good will your chances be if you can attack the HEAD of the beast? I would like to say they will be good, right? I'm a Saints fan...and while our season was close to perfect, and our offense was nothing less than elite. We had problems with Teams that put pressure on who? Yep..Drew Brees..because with a great defense you can't focus on one person, you CAN with a offense. Matter of fact in most cases that's the ONLY person on the offense that you have to rattle to win a game vs. a Great Offense. What happens when Peyton Manning is rattled, or he sees ghosts?

With a great defense, you can steal the momentum more than you can with a great offense. A offense is supposed to score points, but when a Defense and Special Teams can score without the offense even stepping foot on the field, that has to be difficult to handle. A decent Offense can score from opponents two yard line, but a GREAT defense can stop a good or great offense even if they are on the two yard line. You know...kinda like the Steelers when the Cardinals were right there in the Superbowl and the Steelers didn't just stop the Cardinals from scoring, Harrison caught a interception. A interception that he brought back almost 100 yards for a touchdown. Yes the Cardinals and their high powered O came right back and could have won that game after they went up with minutes left. Yes, Kurt scored a great deal of points on that Defense. My point is, that without that Crucial 7 point swing the Steelers wouldn't have been in position to win that game.

I believe that part of being a winner isn't about being the most talented. Sometimes people get wrapped up in who is the most talented. I believe that being a winner has a great deal about who put themselves in the best position to win, consistently. Without having to worry about things like timing, field conditions, crowd noise, snow on the field preventing you from catching or running etc. I believe that you can achieve that with Defense, a GREAT DEFENSE and SPECIAL TEAMS can achieve that..more consistently than a great offense.