In my opinion I think offense is more important than defense because...

[mdonnelly21]

I've heard a lot of people say that defense and offense are equally important but I disagree and here's why (Steven A Smith voice) 

It's globally recognized that the QB position is not just the most important position in all of football but in all of team sports period. 

No other sport has one singular position that relies on it so fully to be good more than football does on the QB. 

I felt like the 49ers were a more balanced team than the Cheifs top to bottom, not by much but Patrick Maholmes made the clear difference in that game, and he didn't a great game either and still made the difference. 

My point is the reason why I take offense over defense is that the offense has the most important player in all of the sports. There is no single defensive player that even comes close to being as important as the QB is not just to the offense but also to the defense. 

If you have a QB who doesn't know how to manage the clock, pick up clutch first downs, step up in the pocket, make good decisions, hold onto the ball then there will a lot of TO's no matter how good the O Line is and how good the WR corp is. 

And if there is a lot of TO's it doesn't matter how good the defense is because TO's will likely give the opposing offense good field position. 

Secondly having a guy like Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre almost guaranteed you AT LEAST 10 wins per season. Brett Favre got 10 + in his sleep year in and year out. 

Remember I said, Brett Favre. 

How many times in Brett Favre's career did the O line change? Did the defense change? Did RB's change? Did the WR corps change? Did the coaching staff change? Did other teams reload? 

And it didn't matter because if you were a Packers then or now, you felt really good about winning at least 10 games because of your QB, and a very good chance to make the playoffs. (Which is like winning the SB almost if you are a team who is out of it by week 9 or 10 most seasons) 

Very rarely have I heard fans feel that way because of one defensive player. As a Bears fan, even a guy like Khalil Mack as dominant as he's been throughout his career had a down year and our defense wasn't even close to the same as the previous year. 

My whole point in all this is, we gave up to much for Mack for a team that in my entire life has never had a great offense for more than 1 year BECAUSE we don't ever have a good QB! 

 

Edited February 7, 2020 by mdonnelly21

[Soko]

1 minute ago, mdonnelly21 said:

No other sport has one singular position that relies on it so fully to be good more than football does on the QB. 

I’d actually disagree there. I don’t watch these sports, but good luck winning games if your goalie (soccer/hockey) have the reaction time of Betty White.

1 minute ago, mdonnelly21 said:

I felt like the 49ers were a more balanced team than the Cheifs top to bottom, not by much but Patrick Maholmes made the clear difference in that game, and he didn't a great game either and still made the difference.

That’d be shorting both Williams and the Chiefs defense credit. And that’s also a single example of a game. Who was the better QB in either of the Pats-Giants SBs? 

1 minute ago, mdonnelly21 said:

If you have a QB who doesn't know how to manage the clock, pick up clutch first downs, step up in the pocket, make good decisions, hold onto the ball then there will a lot of TO's no matter how good the O Line is and how good the WR corp is. 

And if you have a defense that gives up points on every single drive, you won’t win either.

1 minute ago, mdonnelly21 said:

Secondly having a guy like Aaron Rodgers or Brett Favre almost guaranteed you AT LEAST 10 wins per season. Brett Favre got 10 - 12 wins in his sleep year in and year out.

Rodgers is actually a prime example of how having an all-time QB doesn’t guarantee you anything. The only year he sealed the deal is when the Packers had a talented defense. 

1 minute ago, mdonnelly21 said:

How many times in Brett Favres career did the O line change? Did the defense change? Did the RB's change? Did the WR corps change? Did the coaching staff change? Did other teams reload? 

And he ended it with 1 championship.

1 minute ago, mdonnelly21 said:

Very rarely have I heard fans feel that way because of one defensive player. As a Bears fan even a guy like Khalil Mack as dominant as he's been throughout his career had a down year and our defense wasn't even close to the same as the previous year. 

You’re conflating that whichever side has the single, most important player - must be the more valuable side. Donald isn’t as valuable as Mahomes, but that has no pull on which side of the ball carries more or less weight.

1 minute ago, mdonnelly21 said:

My whole point in all this is, we gave up to much for Mack for a team that in my entire life has never had a great offense for more than 1 year BECAUSE we don't ever have a good QB! 

The Bears rolled the dice that Trubisky would be more like Josh Allen than Blake Bortles. They gambled wrong. 

How were those Saints teams with all-time great Drew Brees but a historically bad defense? Or Rodgers last season without a consistent run game or defense? Did the ‘15 Broncos get to where they were because of zombie Peyton/Osweiler? Or those Texans teams with Hoyer at the helm? Or the Sanchez-Ryan Jets? Or the AFCCG Jaguars? 

Look, I realize there are tons of examples looking both ways, so it isn’t necessarily concrete to just count which side has more. But saying QB is more valuable = offense > defense, is a serious oversimplification.

[RamblinMan99]

Here's the problem:

Offense depends entirely on defense to end the opposing possession to give them a chance, yet the defense can also score points on their own.  

That's why it's always been said that Defense wins Championships.  

[DerbyRam]

I would say defense is more important - keeps the score achievable for the offense and in some cases they can even get the takeaways to win the game themselves. 

[Kirill]

4 hours ago, mdonnelly21 said:

I felt like the 49ers were a more balanced team than the Cheifs top to bottom

This has been repeated ad nauseam on this forum, and it's simply not true. It's lazy analysis. The Chiefs had the best special teams squad in the entire league in addition to the best offensive line and best defense in the NFL over the second half of the season. They were far from playmakers + Mahomes. Mathieu should have been the DPOY.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Kirill

[mdonnelly21]

1 hour ago, Kirill said:

This has been repeated ad nauseam on this forum, and it's simply not true. It's lazy analysis. The Chiefs had the best special teams squad in the entire league in addition to the best offensive line and best defense in the NFL over the second half of the season. They were far from playmakers + Mahomes. Mathieu should have been the DPOY.

Okay fair enough I'll take your word for it here. 

[Hukos]

Offense is generally more consistent than defense is from season to season - defenses that are great one year can keep the same talent but just implode the next year with no fault of their own. See: Chicago, Jacksonville, Denver, etc.

However, the playoffs are very random, and with a lot of randomness introduces variance. And with that variance is the value of a good defense.

Let's say you have a great offense, and that offense put up 30+ points in 13 of their 16 games. In the 3 games they didn't put up 30+ points, they lost. Now, we head to the playoffs and the offense is okay, but under-performs at 23 points and loses their first game 26-23 and goes one and done. In the regular season this is okay because you have next week to regroup and figure out what you did wrong. In the playoffs there is no such thing. Thus, the real value of a good defense is specifically to punish other teams for variance working against them. It only takes one bad performance to be knocked out immediately. Basically, you want to punish other teams for being unlucky, and that's where the real value of a defense lies.

Getting to and winning the Super Bowl is effectively a coin flip. So the ideal way to construct a team is a great offense so you can consistently win 10+ games every year to get to the post-season and hope your defense puts it together well enough to show up in the playoffs. Building a team based on your defense is only going to be valuable in the extremely short term, defensive orientated teams tend to implode pretty quickly.

Edited February 8, 2020 by Hukos

[Elky]

KC does not win the SB if their defense didn't wake up down the stretch.

[HTTRDynasty]

The best formula is a good defense paired with an elite QB (not necessarily an elite offense).  

[Shady Slim]

ugh brother with all due respect this is a terrible debate and it ****s me to tears whenever it comes up

neither of them can be said to be more important. if mahomes had kept scoring like he did and the defense didn’t wake up, kansas city wouldn’t have won. but if the defense rose to the occasion but mahomes couldn’t put points on, kansas city wouldn’t win either.

if jimmy and co had managed to score rather than throw a pick on their last drive, it might not have mattered if their defense didn’t hold in the minute remaining. if kc were stopped on the drive williams iced it, it wouldn’t have mattered if jimmy couldn’t march them down the field on their ensuing possession.

it is very very rare a team abjectly bad on one side of the ball like the 2015 broncos succeeds on the big stage. even say the afccg jags, while sure on paper they had bortles and a lacklustre cast, their offense was playing decently well that year- they had just put 45 up on a steelers team with an awful defense but an elite offense - jacksonville won because their offense was decent and their defense elite, while pittsburgh had an elite offense but an atrocious defense.

can hold your opponent to nil, doesn’t matter if you can’t score yourself. can score on all of your drives, and it doesn’t count for jack unless you can get one stop.

the point was raised above that defense is more important because they can put up points while the offense, in theory, can’t stop them. two arguments against that; one, is that a defensive touchdown is not a sustainable score, it’s like saying a stock is a better option to invest in because it rises especially high during trading days when there are more offerings. great. cool. thanks. the second is that yes, an offense can effectively prevent a score, look at the clock control offense the ravens and niners ran during the regular season - they did very well to keep the ball away from the other team!

to win a football game you have to score more than your opponent. to do this you need to both be able to score and stop your opponent from doing the same.