Quote:
Originally Posted by Opoponax
Just because a thing is said over and over again doesn't make it true.
Think about this: starting in 2000, you can find just a small handful of teams in who can be said to have won it all based primarily on their defense.
The 2000 Ravens
The 2002 Bucs
The 2015 Donks
The 2012 Giants
And I'll throw in the 2014 Seahawks too.
The rest have had excellent to Hall of Fame quarterbacks. In other words, 2/3 of Superbowl winning teams have done it based primarily on the quality of their quarterback. And that list is a short one:
Brady
Rogers
Roethlisberg
Manning
Bledsoe
And except for Bledsoe, all those guys have been to more than one Super bowl.
If you go back and look at the entire Superbowl era, you'll see the same trend: a who's-who list of HOF quarterbacks sprinkled with some teams who won championships based primarily on their defense. Of course, there's room for debate. For example, the question of whether Terry Bradshaw would've developed into who he eventually became without that defense is a worthy debate. But he eventually did become a great player.
I don't really care to debate anything about Alex Smith in particular. I just hear the whole "defense wins championships" thing thrown around as if it's as true as gravity when in fact, it isn't. The more accurate way to put it is, "With enough excellent players, together with a great defensive coordinator, a defense can win a championship."
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I mentioned this earlier but the narrative that "defense wins championships" isn't really that accurate. It's more the outlier than the norm. A complete team wins championships. And outside of the the Ravens, Bucs, and Broncos (2015), over the last two decades, the one common component to all the SB champions is a HOF QB. I'm not necessarily saying they're mutually exclusive, but sh*t...if simply going by the "defense wins championships" mantra actually worked as a formula, people would be building their teams from that side out.
The QB, for the most part, can't simply be serviceable. The QB has to make some plays. If this team is going to compete for a Super Bowl, Alex Smith will be called upon to make a big throw at an opportune time. There have been a few moments where Smith has stepped up at key times (Chargers come to mind...but I can't really think of another game. I suppose he hit a few key passes to run out the clock against the Falcons and Raiders), but he's had some huge gaffes too.
The bottom line is that he's not Manning or Brady or whoever. But that doesn't mean he's excused from tossing picks at the most inopportune time in games either. Late in the season, inside the 5 yard line, he simply cannot turn the ball over. Especially since his (supposed) greatest asset is his ability to NOT turn it over. The margin is far too thin with this team to overcome turnovers in the red zone. We need those points—even if it's just 3.