FanPost

Does a good/great secondary matter?

OK, I give up. For two months now I've been trying to write a particular article and have finally decided.......I cant. I simply don't know how. So instead, I open it up to my friends and Bronco Family at MHR.

I've realized that this is all one big exercise is prognostication. I was trying to predict the outcome of the Denver Bronco Defense. Here is my original question to myself.

Does a good/great secondary result in a SOLID Defense?

This is precipitated by trying to defend the Broncos upcoming season, of course. If you can get an "expert" to admit that the Broncos Offense ISN'T going to be problem this year, they will inevitably point you to the Defense. I can't blame them, I would too. But as far as personnel are concerned, the only DEFINATIVE improvement, the only area we can point to and say "we are without a doubt better here", is our secondary. But can a secondary lead the way to an all-around dominant Defense?

I've asked this question to several friends and the resounding answer is........"Wow you spend too much time thinking about this stuff." I've asked "experts" about the key to winning football on Defense, and the answer is always "pressure on the quarterback." Well obviously, the secondary can't put pressure on the QB consistently. Sure there's the occasional Corner Blitz but that obviously can't be the basis of your D. So, I started analyzing. I'm a professional analyst. It's what I do for a living. But this particular task killed me. So, I'm opening it up to you.

After crunching numbers and asking questions, it's MY OPINION, that the following are the teams with the BEST COLLECTIVE secondary's in 2008 (in no particular order).

Tampa Bay

Philly

Miami

Pittsburg

Tennessee

New York (Giants)

Washington

This list is MOST CERTAINLY up for debate

Here is what I interpreted:

  1. Interceptions ARE NOT a definitive indicator of a teams overall strength at the secondary level.
  2. Passing TDs ARE NOT a definitive indicator of a teams overall strength at the secondary level.
  3. Passing Yards APPEAR to be an indicator of a teams overall strength at the secondary level.
  4. Completion Percentage APPEARS to be (but to a lesser degree) an indicator of a teams overall strength at the secondary level.

So based on Passing Yards and Completion Percentages, the seven teams I previously listed are the best secondary's of 2008.

What can also be derived is that 5 of those 7 teams made up the top 8 teams in the league in Quarterback Sacks, and all 7 of those teams were included in the top 10 teams giving up passing TD's. And, if you're interested, 6 of those 7 teams were also in the top 10 for interceptions (Philly tied with 3 others at #11).

Now the question is "who made who?" It's really a chicken or the egg sort of question. Did the secondary strength result from QB pressure, or did QB pressure result from secondary strength? I don't know the answer. I'm not sure there is a definitive answer. But it does appear you can't have one without the other.

What about Rushing Defense? Cleveland, Oakland and Green Bay were all in the top ten for Interceptions last year but at the bottom of the league in Rushing Defense.

Of the 8 teams that had 40 or more sacks last year, only Dallas, Minnesota and the Jets were not in my 7 best secondary's list. Dallas and Minnesota had Demarcus Ware and Jared Allen respectively to skew their teams' numbers, but Miami had Joey Porter skewing theirs so draw your own conclusions.

I have to assume that Denver's secondary is going to be one of the top groups in the league. Up to this point I haven't even mentioned that Denver pilfered 3 of our starting 4 secondary players from those top 7 secondary teams and nobody in their right mind will say Champ doesn't fit in with that group. I have NO REASON, ZERO, ZILTCH to think our secondary will be anything less than excellent. But does that result in QB pressure? What about defensive prowess in general? Green Bay is in the top 3 for Interceptions AND passing percentage but 20th in total yards and gave up a boatload of passing TD's. There are hundreds of ways to look at this. So I open it up to you my friends. Is there a conclusion to be drawn?

This is a Fan-Created Comment on MileHighReport.com. The opinion here is not necessarily shared by the editorial staff of MHR.