re: Offense vs Defense in the NFL? Which wins championships?

Yeah that's a pretty awesome LINK

quote:

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Except that it isn’t necessarily so. What we found: when it comes to winning championships—or winning in general, for that matter—defense and offense carry uncannily similar weight. Among the 45 NFL Super Bowls, the better defensive team, measured by points allowed that season, has won 29 times. The better offensive team has won 25 times. It’s a slight edge to defense, but it’s a pretty close call, and not different from random chance. The Super Bowl champ has been a top-five defensive team during the regular season on 28 occasions. How many times was the Super Bowl champ ranked among the top five in offense? 28.

But we’re talking about only 45 games, so let’s broaden the sample size. There have been 407 NFL playoff games held over the last 44 seasons. The better defensive teams have won 58 percent of the time. The better offensive teams have won 62 percent of the time. Slight edge to the offense, but, again, pretty even. (Sometimes the winning team is better both offensively and defensively, which explains why the total exceeds 100 percent.)

Collectively, teams with a top-five defense have won 180 playoff games. Teams with a top-five offense have won 184 games. Accounting for almost 10,000 regular season games, the better defensive team has won 66.5 percent of the time compared to 67.4 percent of the time for the better offensive team. Again, a negligible difference.

What happens when the best offenses line up against the best defenses, when, say, if the 2006 Indianapolis Colts had had to face the 2000 Baltimore Ravens? It turns out that 27 Super Bowls have pitted a top-five offense against a top-five defense. The best offensive team won 13 and the best defensive team 14. Another virtual stalemate.

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I look forward to the MSB coming up with a definitive answer to the question after 4 games this weekend though.