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Eye of the beholder Ravens, Giants think defensive games can be pretty too
Updated: Sunday January 21, 2001 4:46 PM
NEW YORK (AP) -- If the NFL could custom order a Super Bowl, it would be a shootout between two teams running up and down the field all night, lighting up the scoreboard with touchdowns. Maybe they ought to come back next year. Don't look for slot-machine football with lights flashing, bells ringing and points piling up next Sunday. The Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants play old-fashioned, hard-nosed defense, giving up yards and points grudgingly. Together, Oakland and Minnesota, two of the league's better scoring teams, managed one lonesome field goal in the conference championship games. Offense for the Ravens and Giants, however, is another matter. Sometimes their attacks seem to come directly out of the stone age. They move along like a couple of tortoise teams, each yard earned with a methodical gait. That makes this the perfect matchup. These teams could play a long time before either one scores. Expect points to be at a premium and each yard to come hard. "A field goal could win it," Giants defensive end Michael Strahan said. That's happened before and it might not be the worst thing in the world. Low scoring doesn't mean the game is boring. It might disappoint under-aroused fans who need constant offense to keep their attention. But perhaps they ought to step back for a moment and consider the merits of stopping touchdowns instead of scoring them. Lee Roy Jordan, a linebacker on three Dallas Super Bowl teams, is happy to serve as a witness for the defense. "People don't appreciate defense," he said. "The average fan would rather see a 33-28 game. Me? I love a 10-7 game when I see guys making tackles on guys who were making other people miss all season." There is a popular saying around football, credited to Tom Landry, who designed Dallas' Doomsday Defense three decades ago: offense wins games; defense wins championships.
"Seems like he was right," Jordan said. "It wins championships, doesn't it?" It did for the Ravens and Giants. Jordan remembered how Landry always preached defense first. "The first thing was to control the run and make them pass," he said. "That creates turnovers. We could force turnovers when they have second-and-long, third-and-long and had to throw. It worked for a long time. We had a good defensive team that made things happen. With a little offense, we would have won several more Super Bowls." One of them might have been in 1971. That game was decided, Strahan will be happy to learn, on a 32-yard field goal by Jim O'Brien with five seconds left. Final score: Baltimore 16, Dallas 13. Critics complained about that game because there were six interceptions and five fumbles. What caused all the turnovers, though, was tough, determined defense by both teams. Landry called it the hardest hitting, most physical football game he had ever seen, decided on defense, much the same way the Ravens and Giants win games. Jordan has watched both teams and been impressed by their defensive games.
When the Super Bowl matchup was set, Las Vegas put the over-under at a modest 34 points. That was a tribute to these two defenses. It's been 26 years since two teams in this game have scored fewer points than that. Teams were more diligent about defense three decades ago and seem almost casual about it now. That's what makes the old-school approach of the Giants and Ravens so fascinating. For seven consecutive years early in the Super Bowl series, from Joe Namath's guarantee in 1969 to the start of the Pittsburgh Steelers' Steel Curtain dynasty in 1975, defense ruled. In each of those games, the teams totaled 31 points or less. The trademark of those Super Bowls was in-your-face, smash-mouth football. It should be pointed out that for all the high-powered offense generated by the St. Louis Rams in the last Super Bowl, the most memorable play was a game-saving tackle by Mike Jones on the 1-yard line as time ran out. Jones, of course, plays defense.
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