The Best Defense in the League?

What an NFL Wildcard Weekend!!

I had thought this past weekend might be one of those yawners that seem to happen now and then. The matchups certainly didn’t lend themselves to one’s thinking that it’d be great entertainment, especially not the Broncos-Steelers game. I’d been looking forward to the Giants-Falcons, of course, but the other games didn’t send me, except for maybe the Bengals against the Texans. I thought the Bengals had a great chance.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!!

The Texans were off and running early. JJ Watt, a lineman for Pete’s sake, made a reaching stab of a Dalton pass to the flat and that play pretty much was a harbinger of things to come. There’d be no Dalton dramatics, there’d be no stopping the Texans running game….it was a pretty routine win for the contingent from Texas. For one more year, it’d be a shame to be a Bengals fan.

That Saturday night, the Saints-Lions was on the schedule. Nobody in their right mind thought the Lions would be able to stop Drew Brees but they actually did pretty well through the first half before utterly crumbling in the second half. It was like a snowball rolling down the hill. But, if you like watching a good quarterback work, Drew Brees is one of the three quarterbacks in the league that can absolutely destroy a defense.

One of the other two, of course, Aaron Rodgers, is unfortunately facing our Giants this weekend. His Packers have lost just once this year and Rodgers has been a huge part of the reason. The man is as accurate as anybody who’s ever played. He rolls around in the pocket and will take off running when the opportunity presents itself. The man just rolls.

Yeah. That’s true. But what about the Giants defense? Won’t that pass rush get to Rodgers? I certainly hope so but that Pack OL ain’t chopped liver and I’m not so sure the Falcons OL had one of its better days against the G-Men. But, statistically, as I can recall, the Falcons OL was pretty high in the rankings.

What I’m trying to say is that, if the Giants defensive line is the best in the league, if they can get to any quarterback in the league, then Rodgers might find himself running around a bit more than he is used to. I’ve already heard the Giants have a puncher’s chance and that’s as good an analogy as any, I suppose.

The trouble is that even a Rodgers under pressure is going to be pretty damned good. He’ll roll around and get rid of the ball when he must but most of the time, he’ll just find those receivers in perfect stride. Or, if they’re covered, he’ll just do that back-shoulder routine that’s so impossible to stop. Rodgers throws to everybody and he throws on the run probably better than anybody. So, even if he’s running, that doesn’t help the opposition as much as you’d think.

When the Giants beat the Pats in early 2008, Brady was the QB and, at the time anyway, Brady was considered the best quarterback ever. As things turned out, the Giants did indeed get to Brady and the pressure affected him bigtime. But Brady is a statue compared to Rodgers.

The aforementioned Brady is still in these playoffs, of course, and his Pats should have another reasonably good time against the Broncos. All I can say about that one is Tebow, Tebow, Tebow, Tebow. Watching Tebow running that Denver offense, when it’s all working, is a thing of beauty. What’s he going to do? Well, he could run himself, he could simply hand off or he could run to the edge and pitch it, or he could just wing it down the field, that last being the least likely of all.

That is, until Sunday afternoon. After Sunday’s game, the defense will have to figure against the Broncs passing game as well. Tebow’s 316 yards passing and two touchdowns, and another one rushing, pretty much killed any thoughts that the Broncs were only 3-dimensional. Any more dimensions, of course, would be out of this world, by definition, and that’s exactly what most Broncos fans are thinking about their quarterback these days.

After the Giants crushing of the witless Falcons, I would’ve been happy with the day as it was. I didn’t really need a great Broncos game, even if the Broncs opponent was the hated Steelers, the hated Ben Roethlisberger, that stupid Kiesel beard, that bully Harrison, and Mike Tomlin just out-thinking and out-motivating everybody else on the sidelines.

The way Denver went about their business was special. That first half was especially good, watching the Broncos not only take the lead with a beautifully-thrown Tebow pass that went the distance, but then adding insult to injury by just piling up some more points. And when hated Big Ben took the Steelers all the way back to inevitably tie the game in regulation, one had to think the worst. But Tebow’s on-target dart to Demaryus Thomas on the first play of overtime was just great. There would be no Steelers victory that day. Tebow to Thomas took care of that.

Saving the best for last, the Giants game proceeded pretty much as I had expected. The game started slowly, both teams did nothing and then things heated up quickly. But I’d thought both teams would have some success through the air. I’d thought Falcons head-man Mike Smith would ultimately blow the game. As things turned out though, Smith took his team out early with badly-run quarterback sneaks while the ponderous Michael Turner watched from the bench.

And the Giants defense stopped everything the Falcons could muster.

But Rodgers will be doing the mustering this week and their head coach isn’t Mike Smith. The G-Men need to bring their best game. If they truly have become the best defense in the league, as it certainly appeared on Sunday, they could even win this thing.