Dear world,
I'm going to step away from my usual semi-academic format for an "I told you so" moment. The Super Bowl is half over. The Seahawks (with the NFL's number 1 defense) are leading the Broncos (who boast the NFL's number 1 offense) 22-0. In my life as an athlete, I've firmly believed that a team is only as good as its defense. Defenses are underrated. They have to work harder than offenses, and leagues generally change as many rules as possible to favor the offense. Offenses fill the stadia. But when a defense is just that good, they change everything. This is why I don't buy into the Peyton Manning legacy malarkey. Even if the Broncos are unable to mount a comeback, it doesn't diminish Peyton Manning. The twenty-four hour news cycle will argue that it does. Baloney. Instead, it's a continuation of a trend and confirmation of an old sports adage: offense wins games, defense wins championships. Let's look at recent super bowls when a top offensive team took on a great defense: Patriots stopped by the underdog giants, Steelers stop the Cardinals, looking further back, the Ravens teams that won with mediocre offenses.* There are some games that buck the trend, but I believe this to be true. *As a Browns fan, it pains me to give credit to both the Steelers and the Ravens. They provide, however, some of the best data to back up my current point.
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About TimAs you can see elsewhere on this webpage, I conduct research on ethnic minorities in western China. This blog offers semi-academic musings on the minutiae of daily life out here--the sort of information otherwise destined for footnotes. Categories |