Vinny Cerrato

[MrJL]

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.

We had the eighth ranked defense last year.