SITE NEWS: We are moving all of our site and company news into a single blog for Sports-Reference.com. We'll tag all PFR content, so you can quickly and easily find the content you want.
Also, our existing PFR blog rss feed will be redirected to the new site's feed.
Pro-Football-Reference.com » Sports Reference
For more from Chase and Jason, check out their work at Football Perspective and The Big Lead.
ShareThisPick your poison
I bought my annual college football magazine last week. It predicts my Oklahoma State Cowboys to be an offensive juggernaut with a porous defense. The overall product, according to the experts, should be just on the good side of mediocre; probably somewhere between 6-6 and 8-4.
This isn't going to be a post about the 2007 college football season or about my Oklahoma State Cowboys; they merely serve as a jumping-off point for a Friday discussion question:
If you're going to root for a mediocre team, would you rather they have:
- a mediocre offense and a mediocre defense,
- a good offense and a bad defense, or
- a bad offense and a good defense?
I think I'd rather have one good unit and one bad one than two average ones. That way, at least you've got something to believe in. Now, having rooted for some mediocre teams with great defenses and terrible offenses (like the early-80s Leslie O'Neal-led Oklahoma State Cowboys) and also some mediocre teams with spectacularly great offenses and astonishingly poor defenses (like the late-80s Barry Sanders-led Oklahoma State Cowboys), I say it's no contest. I want the good offense.
I have to admit that a small part of that is probably the contrarian in me rebelling against the standard old-school Defense Wins Championships refrain; I take a perverse pride in playing the part of the rube who is wowed by big points. But it's more than just that. When you're rooting for a team with a great offense, you never really feel out of the game. Down 21? No problem, we can get that back in a couple of minutes with a few breaks. There's hope. Whether it turns out to be enough or not, your team is going to do something about that lead. But with a bad offense it just seems hopeless. Your bumbling offense turns it over in your own end early in the game, the other team capitalizes, and the resulting seven-point lead that feels completely insurmountable.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 4:53 am and is filed under Rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Gotta score to win. Worst case scenario with a good offense is you get into a lot of shoot outs. The whole "defenses win championships" mantra might have been brilliant the first time it was said, but for most people who say it, it's more of a reflex than a solid bit of analysis.
Bad offenses have a lot of turnovers. A good defense can't stop an interception from being returned for a touchdown, etc.
One caveat... a lot of shortcomings can be made up for by avoiding stupid situations such as penalties and bad turnovers.
No matter how good you are, a good punter is important to have.
As an experienced veteran of such matters, I can say give me the offense, or more specifically in college, the play-making dual threat qb. I used to shoot practice and game film for the Missouri football team back in the dark days of the late Bob Stull period, when I am sure Oklahoma St and Missouri circled each other on the schedule. I watched every play of a 73-0 drubbing at Texas A&M. I was in Illinois when Missouri lost 41-0 to a team that had Simeon Rice and Kevin Hardy, and achieved exactly one first down and 19 yards all game. I also saw some fun games, many of which ended in heartbreak, after Corby Jones and then Brad Smith arrived.
Doug, I think why offense feels so much better is because it causes more distress among the alumni of the power school. The big boys get the big boys and athletes on defense and schools like Nebraska and OU take pride in their defensive traditions. The fans don't like it when their linebackers are running into each other trying to get your quarterback as he weaves for a 40 yard td, or when their safeties are getting burned again over the top by Rashaun Woods. And is there anything more satisfying than watching spoiled fans of the other team look at each other and complain?
Defense, Defense, Defense, Defense. Why? Because your defense can score points, the other team's defense might be bad enough to allow your inept offense to score a little bit, and if you get a 7 point lead, it feels like the game is assured, even if it's just halfway through the third quarter.
So says this fan who watched the '92 Alabama team win a National Championship with a fantastic defnese and a terrible offense.
As a BYU alum, it's all about the offense for me. I'll take my 55-54 shootout over some 6-3 bore any day.
I defined "good" as ranked in the top 5 for yards and "bad" as in the bottom 5 for yards. "Mediocre" is yardage ranking of +/-3 from the median rank (for 32-tm league, ranked 14-19 in yards).
I looked at NFL since 1978, excluding strike years (i.e. all 16 game seasons).
Good off/bad def = 22 teams, average wins 8.6
Good def/bad off = 19 teams, ave wins 7.7
Mediocre off and def = 39 teams, ave wins 7.7
Notable good off/bad def incl two 13-win teams, 91 BUF and 03 KC, and one 12-loss team, 96 BAL.
Notable good def/bad off incl 06 OAK (2-14) and two 11-win teams, 05 CHI and 99 TB
Notable mediocre both ways incl two 13-win teams, 97 KC and 99 TEN, and two CIN teams (02, 2-14, and 94, 3-13).
The 97 KC team probably had a better than mediocre defense as they led the league in fewest points allowed and held the champion Broncos to 3 of their 4 lowest point totals all year (19, 22, and 14 in the playoffs - SF held the Broncos to 17 pts).
But using arbitrary criteria, good off/bad def generates the most wins. As a Chiefs fan, I'll just say it's frustrating to have a very good unit let down by a bad one.
If I'm cheering for a bad team, I'd want a good defense and a bad offense. You'll never get blown out, you'll be in every game, and there's always the hope that a big turnover/special teams play will give you the win.
If I'm cheering for a good team, the opposite is true. Sure, you may allow 20 points, but if you score 35, you could have TWO things go horribly wrong and still win.
If I'm cheering for a mediocre thing, I guess it doesn't make much difference. I guess I'd rather cheer for one with definite strengths and weaknesses though, instead of one that's just plain all the way around. At least that way you'd have something to build the team around.
Good offense, bad defense no doubt about it. And I've been a fan of the Dolphins long enough to see both sides. There's nothing worse to me than seeing your team's offense go three and out over and over knowing that all the opponent has to do is score two TDs (or in some cases even one) and the game's over.
Plus a bad O can wear out a good D by continuously putting and keeping them on the field whereas all a bad D needs to do is get one or two stops a game for a good O to win.
Plus bad D seems to be much easier to improve than bad O.
Don't get me wrong, I'm really a big believer in great D, but there were only three choices so I picked one
I don't know. I am a Dolphins fan also, and the Dolphins tried for most of the 80s to improve the defense with little success.
But I'd rather watch the Dolphins of 1983-1995 (mostly good offenses with bad defenses over that span) than the 1998-2002 Dolphins.
Who really knows? There are tons of teams. Everybody's got weaknesses. I guess the key is to make the most of what you've got.
I'll take good offense, bad defense out of those options. At least you can say your team's QB is still great, but he can't get the necessary help (in terms of stops, turnovers, keeping the score low) from his defense to ultimately succeed.
And I'd rather watch my team lose 38-31 than sit through a 14-7 struggle.
As a Ravens fan, I'd take a good offense. It's painful watching all those punts.
But seriously, I'd take the good defense if I want to see wins. If your team with a good defense/bad offense is losing 13-6, 1 lucky play can change the game in your favor. But if your team is losing 35-21, one play can't help you.
Maybe a team like that doesn't really win any more games, but they appear to be "in" games longer.
I'd rather lose 38-31 than 14-7 too, but that's not a fair comparison. With 4 minutes left in the 4th quarter would you rather be down 14-7 or 28-14?
I know these weren't really options, but I would take a good offensive line, and a good defensive line and have mediocre players at the other positions. I think this team would always be in the game and would provide for some exciting plays on both offense and defense.
David,
Can you think of any teams that had good offensive and defensive lines, yet were not good teams?
Richie,
I can't which doesn't mean much because I have a really bad memory.
My point is that in my opinion most good teams start with the lines. So, if a team is strong on both lines, it's going to be a good team.
Good lines, bad team. That'd be the 06 Vikings. Steve Hutchinson, Bryant McKinnie, Matt Birk, Kevin Williams and Pat Williams. Then you have bad QB play, terrible skill positions to give you a bad offense. Defensively they were historic against the run, but that made them an easy target to pass on. All adds up to 6-10.
Brian, you made a good point up there -
"Maybe a team like that doesn’t really win any more games, but they appear to be “in” games longer."
My bro and I have been doing some work on a new analysis method that is similar to Pythag in that it uses points, but it's not the total points for and points against we use, it's the highest lead, biggest deficit, and final margin that we use to measure teams. The teams that win the most games are the ones that are "in" the game the most (don't fall behind,don't give up their lead), which is common sense if you really think about it. So maybe in that regard, a good defense/bad offense may be better for you even if it's not as fun to watch.
Richie,
I think that's a bit simplistic a good line does improve play by the other people, but it can't make a good team. I don't think you'll have to dig to far to find good lines in bad units.
Scott,
I don't know too much about the vikings, but I had heard that their tackles were good but the ends weren't, or at least didn't seem to be playing like it. Is that true?
Easy - good offense over good defense in college football. Recent history at my alma mater, NC State, proves this. In 2003, seniors Philip Rivers and Jerricho Cotchery lead a "top 15" offense to a 7-5 record losing on the road in overtime to both Ohio St. (38-44) and FSU (44-50). The defense was well below average.
OFF/DEF ptsg = 36.1/29.9
OFF/DEF ydsg = 436.5/417.5
The very next season we can't find a servicable QB and the offense becomes average. The defense vaults to one of the best in the country behind Mario Williams and Manny Lawson but can only manage a 5-6 record. They do have close losses again to OSU (14-22) and FSU (10-17) but much of the season is a snooze-fest.
OFF/DEF ptsg = 24.0/19.8
OFF/DEF ydsg = 349/221.4