Interesting topic on "The FAN" Friday. Get your QB early!

[Purple bruise]

Great post, Mondry

I agree mostly but I would remind you that maybe the Vikings did not want Ponder until/after Locker and Gabbert were gone but keep in mind the Vikings staff had coached the Senior bowl prior to the draft and Ponder looked very good in that game and in fact was that game's MVP.

Ponder is quite intelligent and does have most of the skill sets to be an NFL QB sans his arm strength is average at best. But his mobility and physical size are both pluses. I am anxious to see what another training camp, a fair competition and Turner as his coach can do for him.

[mondry]

Thanks for the analysis (although it might be a little rough on Dalton to say he sucks). You make a good point that defense still matters a great deal. It always has and it always will. However, I still believe balance, more than anything else, is what wins championships. The various parts of a team have to complement each other well enough to get the job done. Drafting a QB that becomes an elite player is great but it doesn't guarantee a Super Bowl win. A top 5 defense is great too. It can take a team a long way but that isn't enough to win a championship either. A team needs to have enough going for it in other areas to win it all.

The problem with that is "balance" itself doesn't really mean much when it comes to winning. It's much more beneficial to be elite at something, than just average, it's better to be GOOD than BAD. So having a team that's 20th in defense and 20th in offense won't get you to a superbowl very often. It's balanced but clearly you can see why the word balance doesn't really mean anything when it comes to good or bad between an offense / defense.

Of course if a team has a top 5 defense AND a top 5 offense then surely I don't need to explain why that would be good and it doesn't have to do with them being "balanced". It just has to do with them sporting two elite units on each side of the ball. But this is extremely difficult to accomplish in the modern NFL due to free agency and the salary cap. It's very rare that a team can put forth two completely dominate units.

You could have the #1 defense or offense, and the #15 offense or defense and be well set up for a superbowl appearance but is that balanced? No, not really, one unit is super elite, the other is very slightly above average but it can still have "enough going for it". But that's the "recipe" for success that seems to pop up pretty regularly in the NFL. Superbowl winners like New Orleans or Greenbay will sport an elite offense, while having a defense just good enough to not be considered a liability. Seattle and Baltimore are the same but on opposite sides of the ball, great great defenses, offenses that aren't a liability.

I guess my point is, balance is a word that seems to get thrown around a lot but it doesn't really mean much. It can be bad, 20th rank defense and offense, but hey it's balanced! OR it can be good "We have the 10th best offense and 10th best defense" and maybe that's enough but IMO, balance isn't the key important factor. Being elite at one side of the ball while not being below average at the other side seems to be the best recipe for success and not simply being balanced, although that -can- work too but seems to be very hard to pull off.

For a team like ours, who doesn't look like it'll have an elite QB fall into our laps it seems worth while to me to invest in the defense as our side of the ball to be elite. We have the 14th ranked offense already, but if we improve the offense to top 5 with this bottom of the league defense, we're not going anywhere. If we can build a truly elite defense to go with our 14th ranked offense we may have something! Especially considering our coaches defensive back ground / specialty.

[KSViking]

I agree that the best teams have had a good balance of offense and defense. However, if there is 1 Player that has the most impact on a team's success, I think in this day and age, its still the QB.

[KSViking]

The problem with that is "balance" itself doesn't really mean much when it comes to winning. It's much more beneficial to be elite at something, than just average, it's better to be GOOD than BAD. So having a team that's 20th in defense and 20th in offense won't get you to a superbowl very often. It's balanced but clearly you can see why the word balance doesn't really mean anything when it comes to good or bad between an offense / defense.

Of course if a team has a top 5 defense AND a top 5 offense then surely I don't need to explain why that would be good and it doesn't have to do with them being "balanced". It just has to do with them sporting two elite units on each side of the ball. But this is extremely difficult to accomplish in the modern NFL due to free agency and the salary cap. It's very rare that a team can put forth two completely dominate units.

You could have the #1 defense or offense, and the #15 offense or defense and be well set up for a superbowl appearance but is that balanced? No, not really, one unit is super elite, the other is very slightly above average. But that's the "recipe" for success that seems to pop up pretty regularly in the NFL. Superbowl winners like New Orleans or Greenbay will sport an elite offense, while having a defense just good enough to not be considered a liability. Seattle and Baltimore are the same but on opposite sides of the ball, great great defenses, offenses that aren't a liability.

I guess my point is, balance is a word that seems to get thrown around a lot but it doesn't really mean much. It can be bad, 20th rank defense and offense, but hey it's balanced! OR it can be good "We have the 10th best offense and 10th best defense" and maybe that's enough but IMO, balance isn't the key important factor. Being elite at one side of the ball while not being below average at the other side seems to be the best recipe for success and not simply being balanced, although that -can- work too but seems to be very hard to pull off.

For a team like ours, who doesn't look like it'll have an elite QB fall into our laps it seems worth while to me to invest in the defense as our side of the ball to be elite. We have the 14th ranked offense already, but if we improve the offense to top 5 with this bottom of the league defense, we're not going anywhere. If we can build a truly elite defense to go with our 14th ranked offense we may have something! Especially considering our coaches defensive back ground / specialty.

It seems to me that its just wording and definition. What you just described is what I think of when people are talking about balance in their team. Balance being that the team is not just good at one thing. Not just a great Defense, not just a great offense. I could be wrong, but anytime Balance has been brought up by Jim, or many of the others here, that seems to be what they are talking about. Not 20th ranked D, and 20th Ranked Offense taking the trophy.

[Cliff]

It seems to me that its just wording and definition. What you just described is what I think of when people are talking about balance in their team. Balance being that the team is not just good at one thing. Not just a great Defense, not just a great offense. I could be wrong, but anytime Balance has been brought up by Jim, or many of the others here, that seems to be what they are talking about. Not 20th ranked D, and 20th Ranked Offense taking the trophy.

I think it is wording.

I think Mondry’s point is that high-ranked balance is optimal but in the modern NFL is nearly impossible. Teams that are “balanced” these days tend to be balanced in the wrong way (middle of the pack or worse in all areas). Instead, a team needs to be elite in one area and not bad in the others.

So … maybe the correct phrasing is “more balanced”. A team that is 1st in offense but 30th in defense is better off being 6th in offense and 15th in defense … this agrees with both of their ideas.

[Mothman]

The problem with that is "balance" itself doesn't really mean much when it comes to winning. It's much more beneficial to be elite at something, than just average, it's better to be GOOD than BAD. So having a team that's 20th in defense and 20th in offense won't get you to a superbowl very often. It's balanced but clearly you can see why the word balance doesn't really mean anything when it comes to good or bad between an offense / defense.

Sure, but I thought the implication that a team had to actually be good to win a championship was beyond obvious.

Of course if a team has a top 5 defense AND a top 5 offense then surely I don't need to explain why that would be good and it doesn't have to do with them being "balanced". It just has to do with them sporting two elite units on each side of the ball. But this is extremely difficult to accomplish in the modern NFL due to free agency and the salary cap. It's very rare that a team can put forth two completely dominate units.

As I said, The various parts of a team have to complement each other well enough to get the job done. That's what I mean by "balanced" and later in your post, you seemed to be saying the same thing. The offense and defense don't have to be equally good but being elite in one area alone, (like defense) isn't likely to get a team a championship (ask those Rex Ryan-coached Jets teams you mentioned). They have to be good enough in other areas to complement that elite unit.

You could have the #1 defense or offense, and the #15 offense or defense and be well set up for a superbowl appearance but is that balanced?

Yes, I'd say it is balanced. You seem to be interpreting the word "balanced" as if it means "equal" but that's not how I'm using it here. In fact, I don't think that's generally how it's used when it relates to football. A much better definition would be to say that balanced means "arranged in good proportions". That definition could easily apply to a team like the one you described above. The various parts of a team need to work in harmony with one another for the team to be successful and win a championship.

To put it another way, if it were true that "defense wins championships", it wouldn't matter if a team with an elite, #1 defense had an offense and special teams unit ranked #1 or #31, would it? They'd be able to win it all on the strength of their elite unit. That doesn't happen. Even the '85 Bears and '00 Ravens had more going for them than great defense, even though defense was clearly the strength of those teams.

[Mothman]

I think it is wording.

I think Mondry’s point is that high-ranked balance is optimal but in the modern NFL is nearly impossible. Teams that are “balanced” these days tend to be balanced in the wrong way (middle of the pack or worse in all areas). Instead, a team needs to be elite in one area and not bad in the others.

So … maybe the correct phrasing is “more balanced”. A team that is 1st in offense but 30th in defense is better off being 6th in offense and 15th in defense … this agrees with both of their ideas.

Guys, it's simple. It IS wording and we're all basically talking about the same thing when it comes to balance. It doesn't have to be perfectly equal but the parts of a team all have to work together well enough to get the job done. That's why defense doesn't win championships. It certainly helps but it takes more than that.

As for the Vikings, I see no either/or choice between improving their QB position and improving their defense,. They need to get better in both areas to win it all and if they don't, chances are that Super Bowl win is not going to happen. If they build an elite defense and are still fielding QBs who play like the QBs who have started for them the last few years, their odds of winning a Super Bowl aren't going to be very good. If they get an elite QB but keep fielding defenses that rank in the bottom third of the league, they're probably not going to win it all either.

Balance.

[mansquatch]

I would go a step further and argue that in th context of a top defense it seems that the premium positions are Secondary and LB who can play coverage. I think an interior line that can beat the snot out of the OL is also a postive in that it forces the offense to make plays outside, freeing up the LB to make more plays. (See SF and the Ravens pre decline)

The proof on this is also seen in the Vikings. When Frasier actually produced a top 15 defense we were able to ride out Ponder's first full season and still win 10 games. Not so much when they were ranked in the 30s...

[AP_AD28]

"Balance" as far as the numbers go don't always give the entire story. Clutch plays on 3rd down, or red zone % won't necessarily show up when someone says your team has the 20th best offense in the league. If your defense is elite (think 2013 Seahawks) the offense doesn't need to do a lot, hence their ratings weren't showing how great they really were. They were 26th in the league in passing yards. If someone insists that this is a passing league, you wouldn't anticipate a 26th rated pass offense to win the Super Bowl. Yet, if you watched any of the games, it ALWAYS seemed like they were able to score when given the chance (9th in the league in scoring) and could convert crucial 3rd downs. The defense gave them the short field. Though it isn't always the sexy pick, defense indeed does, and always will, win championships.

http://www.nfl.com/teams/seattleseahawk ... s?team=SEA

[Mothman]

I would go a step further and argue that in th context of a top defense it seems that the premium positions are Secondary and LB who can play coverage. I think an interior line that can beat the snot out of the OL is also a postive in that it forces the offense to make plays outside, freeing up the LB to make more plays. (See SF and the Ravens pre decline)

The proof on this is also seen in the Vikings. When Frasier actually produced a top 15 defense we were able to ride out Ponder's first full season and still win 10 games. Not so much when they were ranked in the 30s...

I don't understand how that proves DB and LB are the premium positions on defense. A team obviously can't afford to be weak anywhere on defense or that weakness is likely to be exploited, which is why the Vikings defense struggled mightily in 2011 and 2013. They didn't have great personnel in the back 7 to begin with so once injuries started piling up, so did losses. That said, good defense begins at the line of scrimmage and there's nothing more important on defense than a good line. A defense without one is DOA. No matter how good the coverage is on the back end, it will eventually break down if the opposing QB has too much time and if the DL is too weak to defend the run effectively, games may not even come down to coverage.

There's a reason why, after the Vikings hired a coach known for coaching good defenses, their offseason priorities on defense were to sign Griffen and upgrade the nose tackle position. Zimmer understands that without a strong front 4, his defense will struggle.

[mondry]

Yes, I'd say it is balanced. You seem to be interpreting the word "balanced" as if it means "equal" but that's not how I'm using it here.

Um... what else would it mean I wasn't aware you would stretch the definition out so that 1 = 15. I think I see what you're saying though.

I would go a step further and argue that in th context of a top defense it seems that the premium positions are Secondary and LB who can play coverage. I think an interior line that can beat the snot out of the OL is also a postive in that it forces the offense to make plays outside, freeing up the LB to make more plays. (See SF and the Ravens pre decline)

The proof on this is also seen in the Vikings. When Frasier actually produced a top 15 defense we were able to ride out Ponder's first full season and still win 10 games. Not so much when they were ranked in the 30s...

Well said, can even make the playoffs with Ponder playing awful if the defense is good enough. We just need a top 5 defense to get us there! Another top tier LB or CB could certainly help.

"Balance" as far as the numbers go don't always give the entire story. Clutch plays on 3rd down, or red zone % won't necessarily show up when someone says your team has the 20th best offense in the league. If your defense is elite (think 2013 Seahawks) the offense doesn't need to do a lot, hence their ratings weren't showing how great they really were. They were 26th in the league in passing yards. If someone insists that this is a passing league, you wouldn't anticipate a 26th rated pass offense to win the Super Bowl. Yet, if you watched any of the games, it ALWAYS seemed like they were able to score when given the chance (9th in the league in scoring) and could convert crucial 3rd downs. The defense gave them the short field. Though it isn't always the sexy pick, defense indeed does, and always will, win championships.

http://www.nfl.com/teams/seattleseahawk ... s?team=SEA

Very true, short fields and more opportunities for clutch plays are always important!

[Mothman]

Um... what else would it mean

Seriously? Come on, Mondry, I answered that in the same paragraph that contained the sentence you quoted.

Consider expressions like " a balanced composition or "a balanced meal". Balanced can mean "in equal parts" but it doesn't always mean that. An equally common use of the word is "keeping or showing a balance; arranged in good proportions" or, as Dictionary.com puts it: "being in harmonious or proper arrangement or adjustment, proportion, etc."

Anyway, enough of this semantic silliness....

"Balance" as far as the numbers go don't always give the entire story. Clutch plays on 3rd down, or red zone % won't necessarily show up when someone says your team has the 20th best offense in the league. If your defense is elite (think 2013 Seahawks) the offense doesn't need to do a lot, hence their ratings weren't showing how great they really were. They were 26th in the league in passing yards. If someone insists that this is a passing league, you wouldn't anticipate a 26th rated pass offense to win the Super Bowl. Yet, if you watched any of the games, it ALWAYS seemed like they were able to score when given the chance (9th in the league in scoring) and could convert crucial 3rd downs. The defense gave them the short field. Though it isn't always the sexy pick, defense indeed does, and always will, win championships.

http://www.nfl.com/teams/seattleseahawk ... s?team=SEA

Very true, short fields and more opportunities for clutch plays are always important![/quote]

So is a top 5 running game, which Seattle had last year. The last time I checked, that was still part of playing offense. Seattle was far from a one-dimensional team last year.

Defense doesn't win championships. That's nothing more than an oft-repeated-but-never-true cliché. Having an elite QB doesn't automatically unlock the key to winning championships either. Good teams win championships. A team with an elite defense that doesn't have enough going for it elsewhere is unlikely to ever win a conference championship, let alone a Super Bowl.

[mondry]

So is a top 5 running game, which Seattle had last year. The last time I checked, that was still part of playing offense. Seattle was far from a one-dimensional team last year.

Defense doesn't win championships. That's nothing more than an oft-repeated-but-never-true cliché. Having an elite QB doesn't automatically unlock the key to winning championships either. Good teams win championships. A team with an elite defense that doesn't have enough going for it elsewhere is unlikely to ever win a conference championship, let alone a Super Bowl.

No one said they're a one dimensional team! All anyone here is saying is that you usually want to have an elite aspect of your team, for Seattle it was defense, and then you usually need to be serviceable in other areas, like not bottom half of the league statistically. Some people would call that balanced, fair enough, I'm over it, moving on! Since defense was the most important thing to seattle winning the superbowl, people are gonna say defense wins championships, it's not a LITERAL thing like that's the only reason they won, but it's clearly the main reason they won. Clearly offense can win championships too, a few posts ago I thought I made that pretty clear. This Vikings team though needs to get a LOT better on defense and only a little better on offense. Give us a top 5 defense and we're pretty close, even Ponder was putting up 30 points per game before he got hurt. If we could hold teams to under 20 that's a lot of wins.

[AP_AD28]

So is a top 5 running game, which Seattle had last year. The last time I checked, that was still part of playing offense. Seattle was far from a one-dimensional team last year.

Defense doesn't win championships. That's nothing more than an oft-repeated-but-never-true cliché. Having an elite QB doesn't automatically unlock the key to winning championships either. Good teams win championships. A team with an elite defense that doesn't have enough going for it elsewhere is unlikely to ever win a conference championship, let alone a Super Bowl.

I agree that teams win championships, however the inflated importance of a superstar QB (though still VERY important) has gone a bit overboard. Having only a good defense and a garbage offense won't get you all the way typically, and i get that, but a great defense trumps a great offense 4/5 times in my opinion. After all, even Trent Dilfer won a Super Bowl…

[Mothman]

No one said they're a one dimensional team! All anyone here is saying is that you usually want to have an elite aspect of your team, for Seattle it was defense, and then you usually need to be serviceable in other areas, like not bottom half of the league statistically. Some people would call that balanced, fair enough, I'm over it, moving on! Since defense was the most important thing to seattle winning the superbowl, people are gonna say defense wins championships, it's not a LITERAL thing like that's the only reason they won, but it's clearly the main reason they won. Clearly offense can win championships too, a few posts ago I thought I made that pretty clear. This Vikings team though needs to get a LOT better on defense and only a little better on offense. Give us a top 5 defense and we're pretty close, even Ponder was putting up 30 points per game before he got hurt. If we could hold teams to under 20 that's a lot of wins.

Oy... clearly, this has been almost entirely about semantics, which means we both foolishly wasted a lot of time. I guess I just don't understand the point of posting a phrase like "defense wins championships" when it's just a meaningless slogan and what you're really saying is the obvious, that teams win championships but sometimes they're better at one thing and sometimes they're better at another.

Anyway, to bring it back to the Vikings and your point about the draft: you appear to be saying that since it doesn't look like an elite QB will fall into the Vikings lap they should do everything they can to build a top 5 defense and then after that, they can almost plug any QB in there. I understand your point and emphasizing defense first is certainly a legitimate approach but at some point, the looming question mark at QB has to be addressed. Plugging almost any QB into the job isn't going to get the Vikings a Super Bowl. They clearly don't need an elite QB to get the job done since non-elite QBs have won Super Bowls but they do need a better QB so really, it makes as much sense to draft a QB as it does to draft defense. They have to get better in both areas if they're going to win it all. It should just come down to who they feel is the best value for them, who will help them most.

On top of all that, who knows who the next elite QB to come out of the draft will be anyway?