World of Sport In denial: the best way to win in the NFL
Great defence can paper over weaknesses at quarterback
If the National Football League truly is, as the trope states, a “quarterback's league”, then how do you explain the top of the standings?
Five teams remain unbeaten after three weeks, and they are quarterbacked by the motley club of Sam Bradford, Carson Wentz, Trevor Siemian, Joe Flacco and a Jimmy Garoppolo- Jacoby Brissett combo platter, players who have trumped the stalwart likes of Cam Newton, Carson Palmer and Ben Roethlisberger.
The Vikings, Eagles, Broncos, Ravens and Patriots share in common what may be becoming the actual trait required of a valid Super Bowl contender. In recent years, teams without a great quarterback have been dismissed as true threats. That perception should change.
NFL teams can rise, and have risen, to the top of the league with mediocre quarterbacks, but not without elite defences. The defence- winschampionships rhetoric may be the one that matters now.
These three weeks could be brushed off as a meaningless smallsample blip, except the notion of needing an elite quarterback to win the Super Bowl died last January. The Broncos provided vivid proof a menacing defence can win a championship regardless of what happens on the other side of the ball. They beat Roethlisberger, Tom Brady and Newton on their way to the Lombardi Trophy.
It would have been reasonable last year, following conventional NFL wisdom, to watch Peyton Manning's passes flutter and believe the Broncos had zero chance to win a Super Bowl. And then they went and won it and forced everyone to think a little differently.
Two years ago played out according to the Quarterback League theory, as Brady led the Patriots' defence — which finished 12th in yards per play and 13th in points allowed — to the title. The year before, though, the Seahawks won the Super Bowl behind their fearsome defence and with Russell Wilson, then in his second season, managing games, as opposed to winning them himself.
The quarterbacks at the helm of this year's last remaining unbeaten teams are by no means hurting their teams. Flacco, for example, has won a Super Bowl, Bradford is a former first overall pick and Wentz might be the league's next star quarterback.
But those teams, no matter how impressive their quarterbacks have been at times, have thrived on the strength of their defence first. The Broncos lead the league with 4m allowed per play. The Eagles have yielded 27 points, the fewest in the league.
The Vikings have become a dominant unit under Mike Zimmer, one of the best defensive coaches in the league, and have forced a turnover on a quarter of their opponents' possessions. Bill Belichick, you may have heard, also can coach defence.
It's not that any quarterback can win a title. It's just become much more likely for an elite defence to prop up an average quarterback and still win.
The Broncos, with an all- time defence and a quarterback rated among the league's worst, provided an extreme example last season.
Recent rule changes and officiating points of emphasis benefit offence. Without the threat of safeties and linebackers taking the heads off receivers, quarterbacks can throw down the middle of the field without impunity.
The current collective bargaining agreement curtailed both the number of practices and the amount of permissible contact within those practices. One result has been corrosion of quality in open- field tackling. Check- downs therefore become significant plays with greater frequency, and quarterbacks have taken advantage, throwing shorter passes.
When successful offences can be built around short passes, and more of the field is available for quarterbacks to use, it broadens the sample of quarterbacks who can operate successful offences.
It would be foolish to discount quarterback play. The Green Bay Packers take the field every week with a chance to win because they can line up Aaron Rodgers behind centre. But it's wrong to assume a team cannot win without a Rodgers. It happened last season, and so far this year, the NFL's best teams have won with tremendous defence and unheralded quarterbacks.