Which Comes First the Offense or the Defense? Chicken or the Egg

and I’m not sure how you can watch the Pats game without seeing that. That game was the first one where Tebow was being asked to 3 step drop into a conventional pocket for dink and dunk passes. The only way to get TE’s into the passing game – which was necessary because our WR’s were injured. And the Pats were the first team in a few weeks to play a conventional defense – rushing the QB – rather than sitting in the box and forcing Tebow to win by passing the ball.

Which meant the O-line was for the first time being asked to defend a pass rush and provide a pocket on their own. They failed. No surprise that Hochstein failed. He’s a career backup and certainly has no upside at this point. Franklin was a bigger failure. He is not a blindside pass protect tackle and was never projected as that. His pass protection so far this year was helped a lot by Kuper on one side and a perma-blocking TE on the other. But this game showed he is a run masher not a pass blocker. He’s a great guard – and a tackle when we are running. But he is not and will never be a pass protect tackle.

And if we are ever going to get the TE on that side involved in the passing game, and protect Tebow’s blindside, we are going to need to get a LT type player and slot them in a RT.

Franklin’s a great player – and there are plenty of places to play him on the o-line. But if he is our main RT next year, then Tebow’s career in Denver will end in 2012. And it won’t matter how much he improves this offseason. No QB in the league could have played well yesterday with the protection our o-line provided – and the Pats are not a great pass rushing team even if they played out of their minds yesterday.

it was refreshing to see a primarily defensive draft last year and I think we still have a lot of holes to fill to become a top 10 D.

Look what a dominant D did with Houston. What a turnaround from last year. I think it will take longer to build a dominant O considering much of that would be dependent on either letting TT develop or replacing him. I’m more interested in the first.

I think on O we really need a RB to spell McGahee. I’d love Lamar Miller in rd 1.

I also think there are some great defensive FA that we should target. I want the Orange Crush back. We started the process last year now let’s finish it.

This is an oversimplification of the draft saying O or D. The solution is best player available. When it is our turn to draft, we choose the best player available at that time in the draft. Why reach for an average d linemen because we need it when we could get the numer one running back or receiver? Great teams are built by drafting the best players. Why do you think New England is good every year: they draft the best players on their board. So the answer to what comes first is: it depends on who is available.

Let’s assume we draft 2 starters per year. At the end of 5 years we will have potentially 6 elite players insteadsof medicore players at positions of need. With the addition of FA, taking the BPA is the right call.

1) Regardless of where our offense is, we are being shown during this playoff stretch, that defenses win games. The Giants were able to stop the Packers, the 49ers stopped the Saints – those are prolific offenses, but holding them down allows opportunities.
2) Offensive scheming might take some time and growing pains. There really isn’t a single spot on the offense that we can take for granted; whereas we can say that we’re set DE, SLB, WLB, and maybe one of the DTs.

That being said, I think there is a more clear understanding of what we need on defense to get a complete, elite unit. I think that we draft/go through FA with a defensive mind set, even if we don’t get our offensive crew completely figured out, we get one side of the ball figured out. This will allow us to get more possessions next season, hold off the high-powered offenses (can’t allow 5 40+ point games!), and better figure out our offensive gaps.