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Originally Posted by Drift Reality
Lets be clear - defense wins championships but it isn't like you can't have any offense at all. Your offense has to be able to maintain possession to some extent and ultimately, score the ball -
Now, that can be mitigated to some extent by having elite special teams (which we didn't have in 2004) or if you have a defense that creates turnovers (which we didn't have in 2004).
If we had an elite special teams unit and created turnovers then we would have won in 2004. Unfortunately, what we had was a tough defense that limited opponents yards but did not get many takeaways. Our special teams were average.
Additionally, I think we had some questionable coaching that year to compound things.
In general though - defense will win you championships. And someone else on this thread made the comment - just look at the current NFL champs. If they were all built on one side of the ball there is no way they would have stopped the machine.
Incidentally, Justin Tuck was the 74th pick overall in his draft. Just food for thought - that while we were taking three receivers, there were probably talented pass rushers who could have helped us waiting to be drafted.
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Trying to argue this is like trying to determine if the chicken or the egg came first. You have to have both. Certainly you can't win if you have all offense and no defense. But the opposite is also true -- example? The 2004 Washington Redskins.
You could also point to the Eagles when they had Reggie White, Gerome Brown, Clyde Simmons, Andre Waters, Seth Joyner... those were fantastic defenses that Buddy Ryan built. But they never came close to sniffing a championship.
As to your last point, if Devin Thomas, Fred Davis, and Malcolm Kelly contribute so much so that this offense breaks into the top five, and scores similar to the way they did in '83 and '91, nobody questions this draft. If not, or worse, one of those guys turns out to be a complete bust, Vinny will never live down taking three receivers when your pass rush has been a problem for years.