Dolphins defense not quite championship level?

[Pappy13]

http://miamiherald.typepad.com/dolphins_in_depth/2011/03/tony-sparano-defense-cannot-rest.html

Not quite championship level? Are you kidding me? It's no where even in the same vicinity of being close to champsionship level. What is Armando smoking? Does anyone here believe the Dolphins D is very good, let along championship level? I sure don't. It's getting better, but they have a long way to go before they convince me they are even a very good defense. They have good players in a lot of spots, but only maybe 1 or 2 potential pro-bowlers and that's it, the rest still either have to prove themselves or are just average.

[MikeO]

It's good, but not championship level. We have no 2nd and 3rd CB's. And I don't want to hear Will Allen is coming back, he is now old and officially broken down. And Sean Smith stinks.

We have a solid defense. A defense that is good enough to get us to the playoffs. But to win it all or win multiple playoff games.....NO!

[Doc-phin]

I happen to think our defense is championship level.  This is my thinking...

CB - Davis, Smith and Will Allen at corner is plenty sufficient and really there is no weakness to attack there.

Safety - Clemons may not have come up with picks, but he was in the right spot all of last season and put an end to the big plays from years past.  Bell may struggle against elite tight ends, but he is still solid. 

D - line as a whole may be the best in the business right now.  Nobody can run against us because they can't even make it to the linebackers.

Linebacker is a little touchy due to depth.  If everyone is healthy, Dansby, Crowder, Wake and a second year Misi are certainly good enough to get the job done against any team. 

It comes down to this...  Our backfield got a lot of hands on balls last year that were dropped.  We got rid of Mr. Liability (Jason Allen) and Will Allen should be an upgrade over Sapp.  Hold onto just a few of those potential picks and you have a top 5 defense.

[Spider-Dan]

Did New Orleans have a "championship defense" last year?  How about Indy?

[tubba marxxx]

For once I 100% agree with Mike-O


and for the record, football is the ultimate TEAM sport..so the title of this article kinda pisses me off..but that's just me..insert your "defensive wins championships" rebuttle here  

[masterfins]

When you have an offense that can NEVER score 30 pts in a game during the season it puts a lot of added pressure on the Defense.  I would agree the defense is very solid, playoff caliber.  Annointing a unit truly "Championship Level" is rare, and often misused.

[MikeO]

Did New Orleans have a "championship defense" last year?  How about Indy?

Saints lost in the 1st round of the playoffs and let Matt Hasselbeck and Marshawn Lynch look like hall of famers. Their defense stunk. Indy wasn't very good last year.

Bad example you just gave

[Pappy13]

Did New Orleans have a "championship defense" last year?  How about Indy?

Nope, but they have championship level offenses.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Nope, but they have championship level offenses.

If you take the Miami Dolphins defense and add the Colts, Saints or NE offense then Miami is a championship caliber team. Of the two units the offense is holding the team back more then defense.  I think that is the point.   

[Pappy13]

If you take the Miami Dolphins defense and add the Colts, Saints or NE offense then Miami is a championship caliber team. Of the two units the offense is holding the team back more then defense.  I think that is the point.   

Well I really don't see the Colts or the Saints or the Patriots switching offenses with the Dolphins anytime soon, so it's nice that if you just bolt on a Championship quality offense to a good defense you get a championship caliber team, but that doesn't really make the defense a championship caliber defense.

2 years ago Miami was pretty happy with the way that their rushing offense was playing and figured if they could just get a little more out of the passing attack and defense it would be pretty good team. Well the defense did improve quite a bit, but the running game went south and the passing attack couldn't pick up the slack and we ended up right back at the same place we were the year before. If we start just assuming that the defense will be fine next year, I think that's making the same mistake we made the prior year with the running game. 1 year of decent production is a starting point, not the end result.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

^^^ NE or NO....probably not.....but Peyton is still a free agent last time I checked.  So ya never know.....

I think Armando's point is the defense needs only some improvement for the team to be championship level team, but the offense needs a lot of improvement to get there.  He didn't say they were a championship level defense, but only almost one.  I don't think such an assessment of the Dolphins warrants a "what is he smoking" reaction.

[Pappy13]

^^I guess it depends on how you define "championship level defense".

If you define it as a defense that's good enough to win you a championship if you have the best offense in the NFL, then yeah, with a little improvement maybe the Dolphins fit that definition.

However if you define it as a defense thats good enough to win you a championship with only an average offense which is how I define it, then the Dolphins defense is no where close to that definition.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I use neither of those definitions.

I define it as if the offense and defense were roughly equal do you have legitimate shot at a championship.  I would say based on that definition the defense is close and the offense is nowhere near.

[Spider-Dan]

Saints lost in the 1st round of the playoffs and let Matt Hasselbeck and Marshawn Lynch look like hall of famers. Their defense stunk. Indy wasn't very good last year.

I hate to have to point out what would seem to be obvious to any reasonable person, but when I said "last year" and cited those two specific teams, I was talking about the 2009-2010 season in which both of those teams made it to the Super Bowl.  And I'm pretty sure that the Saints did not make Marshawn Lynch look like a hall of famer in that season; I think IND was a fairly decent team as well.

[Spider-Dan]

I think you're all underrating the defense by an incredible margin.  If, for example, MIA signed Asomugha, we would have something very near the best defense in the league.  We have a glaring hole at 2nd CB and need depth at MLB (Crowder's backup), but the rest of our positions are somewhere between elite (Wake, Dansby, Davis) and solid (Bell, Langford, Starks).

Smith is above-average for a nickel corner (just not starter quality).  I guess you could make an argument for Clemons, but I thought he was pretty good (if unspectacular).

Now obviously, signing one of the best defensive players in the league will make a big difference on any team.  But if we picked up, say, Cromartie, is NYJ's defense better than ours?