Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
And that's the thing.
If we lose, the defense will be blamed. And really, it will probably be their fault. But the bottom line is that the defense CAN play well enough to win. On it's good days, it's played well enough to beat anyone we'll face, anywhere.
Come playoff time, nobody just walks out there and blows the other team off the field with raw talent. Ain't gonna be a Browns game on the schedule. Instead they have to go execute. This isn't college - the other team is good and in the post-season you have to simply play well to win. And if this defense plays well, it's plenty capable of that.
There's a chance that in the post-season we have a game where the defense doesn't execute, the offense can't overcome it and we lose. And that will suck. But this defense has the pieces on it to go get those stops as well. If they go out there and play a good game - execute to their abilities - we can beat anyone.
Yes, going forward we want more talent on defense to give that D more margin for error (and the offense as well, for that matter), but the defense has the ability to win us a championship as presently constructed - they simply have to go out and play one of their good games, not the Patriots game. They don't even have to play perfect football (i.e. the Bengals game was damn near that), but if they can give us a B/B+ game, we can beat anyone.
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I'd argue that this defense is a healthy Justin Houston and Eric Berry away from being legitimately competent.
If there's any question over the status of those two this offseason, Veach will have a tough choice to make - and it's important that he isn't sentimental about his decision making process. This offense is too generational to let a half-ply toilet paper defense risk our chances of getting a title.