Top five defenses in the league

[BAConrad]

Honestly does it matter at this point? We've seen the best defenses in the NFL get dominated by clearly inferior offenses this season. 

Theringer.com's Kevin Clark wrote a good piece about this..Which is that with the new NFL rules, the advancement of offenses due to progressive and open thinking, etc, it simply is just an offensive league. And I don't know if that's gonna change.

[BayRaider]

1 hour ago, BAConrad said:

Honestly does it matter at this point? We've seen the best defenses in the NFL get dominated by clearly inferior offenses this season. 

Theringer.com's Kevin Clark wrote a good piece about this..Which is that with the new NFL rules, the advancement of offenses due to progressive and open thinking, etc, it simply is just an offensive league. And I don't know if that's gonna change.

It won’t change for a long long time. Scoring is fun. Leads changing a bunch of times in the 4th is fun. OT is fun. I love a great defensive battle.. but deep down we all know we love offensive slugfests and fantasy football more so. 

[BAConrad]

Just now, BayRaider said:

It won’t change for a long long time. Scoring is fun. Leads changing a bunch of times in the 4th is fun. OT is fun. I love a great defensive battle.. but deep down we all know we love offensive slugfests and fantasy football more so. 

Pretty much.

And the NFL PR and media execs agree with your opinion also.  Kevin Clark said that he's had multiple NFL execs tell him that this NFL is their wet dream (maybe not those exact words). High scoring, up tempo, QB driven, and always close at the end. 

This season the games have been the closest ever in NFL history. IDR the exact number but something around 9 pts per game difference league wide. 

IE there's the insane QB numbers.....IIRC 5 or 6 QBs are completing over 70% of their passes, which has been done only by two different players in a full season ever. 

Or how there's 9 QBs who have higher QBRs than Aaron Rodgers' career avg (which is the highest in NFL history of any players in their career).

Or how Eli Manning is posting a QBR that's actually a few pts HIGHER than the one he posted in 2007 when the Giants won the SB.

it is now and forever will be an offensive and QB driven league. It is , after all, the easiest that it has ever been to play quarterback in the NFL

[DigInBoys]

3 hours ago, BAConrad said:

Pretty much.

And the NFL PR and media execs agree with your opinion also.  Kevin Clark said that he's had multiple NFL execs tell him that this NFL is their wet dream (maybe not those exact words). High scoring, up tempo, QB driven, and always close at the end. 

This season the games have been the closest ever in NFL history. IDR the exact number but something around 9 pts per game difference league wide. 

IE there's the insane QB numbers.....IIRC 5 or 6 QBs are completing over 70% of their passes, which has been done only by two different players in a full season ever. 

Or how there's 9 QBs who have higher QBRs than Aaron Rodgers' career avg (which is the highest in NFL history of any players in their career).

Or how Eli Manning is posting a QBR that's actually a few pts HIGHER than the one he posted in 2007 when the Giants won the SB.

it is now and forever will be an offensive and QB driven league. It is , after all, the easiest that it has ever been to play quarterback in the NFL

I think defenses just need some time to adjust to the rules.

[game3525]

Quote

Honestly does it matter at this point?

Somewhat.

I think the days of absolute shutdown defenses like last years Jags team and the 2013 Seahawks are a thing of the past. However, I still think you need to have a defense that can generate turnovers. It is all about stealing one extra possession. 

[SBLIII]

On 17.10.2018 at 8:22 PM, game3525 said:

Somewhat.

I think the days of absolute shutdown defenses like last years Jags team and the 2013 Seahawks are a thing of the past. However, I still think you need to have a defense that can generate turnovers. It is all about stealing one extra possession. 

I don't think all that much has changed in 1 year. The Jaguars were not all that far off from a SB win with a below average quarterback. You might not get to a SB anymore with a Dilfer or washed Manning type QB but an average one with a great defense should be good enough.

[game3525]

8 hours ago, SBLIII said:

I don't think all that much has changed in 1 year. The Jaguars were not all that far off from a SB win with a below average quarterback. You might not get to a SB anymore with a Dilfer or washed Manning type QB but an average one with a great defense should be good enough.

I disagree. 

A lot has changed in the last year. The AFC is much better in terms of offenses. The Chiefs, Bengals,  Ravens and Chargers are much better on offense then they were a year ago. The Pats and Steelers are at the same level and will get better as we enter the stretch run. The Jags are a great defense, but they benefited with the league as a whole have a down year in terms of offense in 2017. 

Just look at the their game against KC. I don't even think KC played "well" on offense and yet they still put up 30 points. I don't think the Jags have the offense to keep up this year and their defense is just not good enough where it can limit elite offenses to 25-30 points IMO. 

[SmittyBacall]

This is like making a list of the tallest midgets.

[Hunter2_1]

Are kids going to grow up only wanting to be offensive players? Playing as a DB or a linebacker can't be much fun, if it's about damage limitation. Either rule changes must occur to balance it a bit, or the discrepancy will get too wide. 

[TheFinisher]

On 10/15/2018 at 4:34 PM, Calvert28 said:

You mean Chido, but I agree with this the Dallas defense has quietly been becoming an almost dominant and scary defense and while people may overlook Byron Jones as arguably the best performing CB this year or even DLaw as one of the top DE's in the league. The ones that have arguably been doing the most for this defense this year are these two guys. And I don't care what anyone says, Jaylon Smith has been all-pro since game 1 this year.

 

 

Dallas' front 7 is loaded with long, rangy athletes and Byron Jones is playing out of his mind.  They have as deep a group of pass rushers in the league.

I'd like to see more, but certainly in the conversation for top 5 and considering their youth you'd think they only get better as the season wears on.

 

 

[renndawg37]

On 10/7/2018 at 9:43 AM, JaguarCrazy2832 said:

What happened to them? I'm not trying to troll or anything, I seriously want to know. They have so many incredible pieces on that defense with Rhodes, Smith, Barr and a ton on the DL. I though they'd be smashing teams

Barr isn't good. 

[JAF-N72EX]

13 hours ago, TheFinisher said:

 

Dallas' front 7 is loaded with long, rangy athletes and Byron Jones is playing out of his mind.  They have as deep a group of pass rushers in the league.

I'd like to see more, but certainly in the conversation for top 5 and considering their youth you'd think they only get better as the season wears on.

Definitely need to see alot more. It's easy to look good when 5 out of 6 opposing offenses are all currently ranked in bottom half of the league. CAR(12th), NYG(17th), SEA(18th), DET(20th), HOU(27th), JAX(26th)

And it's not as if those offenses playing Dallas' defense skewed those numbers either when you look at where each of those offenses ranked prior to those games.

NYG were ranked 22nd after week 1, SEA was 29th after week 2, DET was 24th week 3, HOU was 18th after week 4 and JAX was 22nd after week 5. So these offenses were already terrible. 

[jrry32]

15 hours ago, renndawg37 said:

Barr isn't good. 

I don't think Barr is bad either. He's been unfairly blamed this year. I think he's being forced to play out of position right now. I think he'd really thrive as a 3-4 SOLB in an aggressive defensive scheme.

19 hours ago, TheFinisher said:

 

Dallas' front 7 is loaded with long, rangy athletes and Byron Jones is playing out of his mind.  They have as deep a group of pass rushers in the league.

I'd like to see more, but certainly in the conversation for top 5 and considering their youth you'd think they only get better as the season wears on.

 

 

Seattle was so stupid to fire Kris Richard. That man can coach DBs, and I felt like his defensive scheming as their DC was quite underrated. He was a lot more aggressive than Gus Bradley. He got scapegoated after injuries decimated their defense imo (and for the personality issues last year).