the argument against taking a CB at 5

[Skull and Bones]

1. 6 out of the top ten passing defenses didn't even make the playoffs.
2. NY Giants (29th), NO Saints (30th), NE Pats (31st), GB Packers (32nd) were at least 4 out of the 5 best teams in the NFL and they were the worst pass defense teams.

[Skull and Bones]

in comparison 6 out of the 10 top run defenses made the playoffs and non of the bottom 9 teams in that category did.

[Skull and Bones]

so how were the Giants, Packers, Pats, and Saints able to be good without good passing defenses?  They were all good to mid pack in run defense.

[Skull and Bones]

interestingly, only the Giants countered their bottom level pass defense by being a top 10 sack team.  Although 6 out of the top `10 sack teams made the playoffs and only 1 in the bottom 11 did.  so it's somewhat important but not essential to be elite.  The top 2 teams in this category didn't make the playoffs.

[The Franchi5e]

More like they have offenses that can stay on the field long enough to hide their defensive deficiencies.

[Skull and Bones]

as far as interceptions there are good team in both the top 10 and bottom 10.  Don't see a pattern.

[Skull and Bones]

the stats show that run defense is more important to success than pass defense.  just the opposite of what many have been saying lately.

[The Franchi5e]

Run defense is by far more important than pass defense. Look at the Jets, great pass defense but once teams found out they could start running on them this year it hurt both areas of their game.

[Bschucher]

What's with your thread format of the post?

[Skull and Bones]

being a good scoring defense though is important.  most of the top 10 teams were playoff bound and none of the bottom 7 were.

[Tampa-Two]

Skull and Bones overload...

[XFactor]

Rankings can always be skewed. Those teams you listed for the most part are high scoring teams, it's safe to say that their defense had to face a lot of pass plays opposed to run plays. Kinda like in 2010 when we were ranked 30th in rushing defense and 12 th in pass defense, did we really have the 12th best passing defense because we were that good against the pass or did teams simply run it on us because we sucked at stoping the run.

[Skull and Bones]

Valid point but that just tells you that offenses now dictate how the games are played.  Maybe all first round picks should be on that side.

[leeroybuc93]

What I see has nothing to do with defense. I see 3 elite offenses and one very good one.

[Dy-nasty D]

Elite offenses score a lot of points and their opponents have to throw the ball a lot more to play catch up (and often against prevent defenses). This explains the "poor passing defense" of elite offensive teams. And, of course they have better run defenses because teams playing catch up don't run the ball much.