Tag Archives: Von Miller

Greatest Single Season Defenses: 2013 Seahawks “Legion of Boom” v 2015 Broncos “No Fly Zone”

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A decade or so back I had completed a journey to find the greatest single season defense in NFL history and had a childhood friend Gerald “Honeybun”Johnson claim “Hey you have to redo that study and include the 2015 Broncos.” To which I said they were a great defense but they weren’t good enough. Now everyone has their criteria but I know my method had been pretty fool proof. Take every Super Bowl champion, every #1 defense, every record setting defense, every trend setting defense. Now lets see how they fared against Pro Bowl QBs and Top Ten offenses and held opponents to 10 points or less in their season of dominance to knock out all biases.

In recent years you’ve had people inventing their own unofficial stats to make a team seem better than they were. Official defensive rankings have always gone by yardage per game, not points allowed. Now looking at points allowed after yardage, then add in yardage rankings passing, rushing, sacks, and interceptions, then you have methodology to begin a study. My study had over 200 defenses and included all 48 and now 60 Super Bowl champion defenses. So no one can flippantly say “They won the Super Bowl” when every one of them are here.

My online arguments with “Honeybun” (childhoood nickname sincehe always ate ’em lol) had long since ended and then former Bronco Aqib Talib revived it on The Arena Gridiron’s Podcast. Both argued the ’15 Broncos were better than the Legion of Boom from 2013:

Time for The chancellor of Football to break this down and the Seahawks wound up #3 all time on my list

2013 Seahawks – Super Bowl XLVIII champions /2015 Broncos – Super Bowl 50 champions

  • ’13 Seahawks -#1 overall/273.6yds allowed /231 pts given up/44 sacks/ 28 ints.
  • ’15 Broncos -#1 overall/283.1 ypg allowed / 296 pts given up/52 sacks/ 14 ints.

Keep in mind in ’15 it was the 2nd ranked Seahawks (291.5 ypg) who actually led the league in fewest points allowed with 277 in the Broncos dominant season. The Broncos were ranked #1 by giving up 138 yds less for the season than #2 ranked Seattle (4,668 to 4,530) but in Seattle’s 2013 season?? *sucks teeth* A much wider chasm between #1 Seattle and #2 Carolina Panthers (4,378 yds to 4,820 yds)

This group was #1 overall (273.6 ypg. v #2 301.25 ypg) while finishing #1 against the pass allowing 172 yards per game. Those stats were 28 and 22 ypg. better than the Panthers ranked 2nd.

Now that the games are big for everyone, Seattle can apply pressure to opponents.

The Legion of Boom held 7 regular season opponents to 10 points or fewer where The No Fly Zone had 3. The Broncos were 3-1 v top ten offenses which includes the Panthers in the Super Bowl where Seattle only beat 2.

The ’13 Seahawks were 4-1 v Pro Bowl QBs where DC Wade Phillip’s Broncos were 3-2. In those 2 losses they allowed Andrew Luck’s Colts 27 points and Big Ben’s Steelers 34 points and these weren’t top ten offenses in 2015. Yet the Broncos were stronger against the run in ’15 ranking 3rd where Seattle was only 8th in their season. Sooooo Seattle wins this but…

What makes the Broncos so memerable is their front 7 had more flash and substance with Super Bowl 50 MVP LB Von Miller (11 sacks) and PFHof DeMarcus Ware (7.5 sacks) crashing the pocket. We see his sacks on Cam Newton all the time but folks forget his 3 sacks and an interception of Tom Bardy in the AFC Championship to get them there:

Miller, Aqib Talib, Chris Harris Jr, TJ Ward and DeMarcus Ware all made the Pro Bowl back when it meant something. Teh No Fly Zone was #1 against the pass and # 3 against the run with DEs Malik Jackson (45 tack/5.5 sacks) Derek Wolfe (49 tack/ 5.5 sacks) & NT Sylvester Williams bearing the brunt up front. Then think about this…. Shaq Barrett who would be Taylor Blitz Times Defensive Player of the Year in 2019 (in Tampa Bay) was a backup linebacker on this squad where he had 5.5 sacks in relief of Ware. Yes the same Barrett that chased Patrick Mahomes out of the stadium in Super Bowl LV. he tied Miller in ’15 for the team lead with 4 forced fumbles.

Danny Trevathan (109 tackles/ 6 pbu / 2 ints 1TD) & Brandon Marshall (102 tackles/4 pbu/ 2ff) were rangier than most Inside Linebackers and cleaned up everything between the hashmarks under 15 yards.

The strength of The No Fly Zone was blanket coverage where as a unit they had 83 pass break ups over the season. Talib led the unit with 3 Ints returning 2 for touchdowns and Harris and Stewart finished with 1 each. Against other statistical defenses the lack of interceptions (14) hurt in comparison. Even against The Legion of Boom with 28 in their 2013 year. Yet they were in man to man knocking down passes rather than being in a zone and breaking on throws.

Like many in this group the Broncos incredible defensive run in ’15 came while dragging an anemic offense to a title. Did you know the Broncos had the lowest ranked offense in the Super Bowl era to win it all?? They were ranked 19th beating out the 2000 Ravens where Trent Dilfer led the 16th best offense. Yet you had the feeling had they played Super Bowl 50 another 10 quarters the Panthers weren’t going to score.

Seriously in this day and age Peyton Manning (9TDs/ 17 ints) & Brock Osweiler (10TDs/6 ints) threw for less than 4,000 yards and completed just 60.7% of their passes. This ranks as low as the ’71 Colts with 2 aging QBs and the ’91 Eagles who had 5 QBs on the season. Their 6.55 yards per attempt might be the worst of any champion as well.

Are they a best ever defense?? They’re the 2nd best of the decade and 3rd best defense dating back to 2000. The short answer for The Chancellor of Football is yes, they were phenomenal. They would definitely be in the honorable mention category of this list. Remember every Super Bowl champion and every #1 ranked defense for over 60 years is included. See for yourself. Don’t just look at the names…the total arguments are in each article. Ohhh… and by the way “It was a different era” is an agument that doesn’t fly here. I love Talib’s takes on The Arena and I wouldnt watch it without him on there but here is where I brought conjecture and complete historical data to support.

  1. 1985 Chicago Bears
  2. 2000 Baltimore Ravens
  3. 2013 Seattle Seahawks
  4. 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers
  5. 1991 Philadelphia Eagles
  6. 1971 Baltimore Colts
  7. 1977 Dallas Cowboys
  8. 1975 Minnesota Vikings
  9. 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers
  10. 1986 Chicago Bears
  11. Honorable Mention Units

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Prime Pass Rushers Tilt The Field

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I forgot where we were having the conversation but I remember explaining to a football fan that nothing changes a team’s fortunes faster than a prime pass rusher. Not only does it improve your defense against the pass but it masks defensive deficiencies in the secondary. Its one of the reasons Taylor Blitz has Green Bay on its way to at least the NFC Championship Game this year with the acquisition of Micah Parsons.

This has been a lesson passed down from days gone by from two defensive terrorists The Chancellor has met that rushed the passer. Fred Dean & Cedrick Hardman. This especially holds true when a pass rusher in his prime is all of a sudden dropped on to a new team in a new division and I needed to elaborate further.

In 5th grade (1980) i remember the Raiders signing veteran Cedrick Hardman to rush the passer #86. He got 9.5 sacks as a designated pass rusher that helped Lester Hayes lead the NFL with 13 interceptions & they won Super Bowl XV.

The next year the idiotic move was San Diego sending a prime Fred Dean to San Francisco and they came out of nowhere to win Super Bowl XVI. It was Hardman, Dean and Lawrence Taylor that taught me the effects of great pass rushers.
To further the notion, the 1980 Chargers with Fred Dean was 6th in total defense & led the league with 60 sacks. Without Dean they gave up 1,500 more yards (4,691 to 6,136 yards allowed) and fell to a ranking of 27th and history misremembers them as Air Coryell & a terrible defense. They had finished 5th in ’79 & 6th in ’80 with Dean on the roster.
Other notables:
  • DE Charles Haley in ’92 – Cowboys were 16th in defense and rose to #1 and won Super Bowl XXVII
  • DE Jevon Kearse in ’99 – Titans had 30 sacks in ’98, they had 54 as Kearse’s Titans made Super Bowl XXXIV
  • OLB Von Miller in ’21 – Added to the #1 defense from ’20 & had 2 sacks in Super Bowl LVI in Los Angeles.
  • OLB Haason Reddick in ’22 – Improved from 10th to 3rd in defense & 39 sacks to 770 sacks. Went to Super Bowl LVII.

In Kearse’s case he set the NFL Rookie Record with 13.5 sacks and the Titans became one of the league’s most physical defenses. Reddick was Taylor Blitz Times Defensive Player of the Year with 16.5 sacks and spearheaded one of the NFL’s historic sack totals. We hadn’t seen a sack total like that since the ’89 Vikings with 71 sacks, just 1 off the league record of 72 by Chicago. Both the Bears & Vikings were #1 defensively and the Eagles would have been had they not been in so many blowout victories.

Eagles linebacker Haason Reddick forces a first quarter fumble on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy at Lincoln Financial Field on Sunday, January 29, 2023 in Philadelphia.

The NFL world is still buzzing with the idiotic trade of Dallas prime pass rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. Moves like this completely tilt the field when a defense receives a weapon to bolster its lineup. Especially in this division. We all know of the seismic shift that took place when Green Bay signed the late Reggie White back in 1993, but remember the Bears bringing in PFHOF Julius Peppers to the division in 2010?

Chicago went from 17th in defense in 2009 to 4th and made it to the NFC Championship Game where they hosted Green Bay. Peppers was an All Pro for the 6th time in his career & 4th in NFL DPOY voting.

They did it again trading for future PFHoF Khalil Mack in 2018 leaping from 10th in defense to 3rd. They had been #1 for most of the season and Mack made his 5th straight Pro Bowl, 3rd All Pro selection, came in 2nd in voting for NFL DPOY (he won it in 2015) and led the Bears to a 12-4 record and first round bye. Mack was Taylor Blitz Defensive Player of the Year a 2nd time and The Chancellor predicted the carnage he would lay in Green Bay that first game on Monday Night. Why??

Well it was the 2nd coming of what happened when the San Francisco 49ers made the surprise move to pick up PFHoF DE Fred Dean at the start of 1981. Rivals within the division were unable to prepare for this terrorist to be dropped in their lap. They were unable to prepare via the draft or free agent personnel and here comes 4 time All Pro Micah Parsons. They were already the NFL’s 5th best defense in 2024. Yikes!

You could even bring up  PFHoF DeMarcus Ware when he joined Von Miller in Denver to win Super Bowl 50. Yet that was in his 2nd season in Denver and not the surprise element of tilting the field in the 1st.  Same can be said of fellow PFHoF DE Jared Allen. In his 2nd season in Minnesota (2009) he was among the league leaders in sacks (14.5) and led his Vikings to the NFC Championship Game featured here in a “Missing Rings” article.

Same can be said of the late Kevin Greene who tilted the field 3 times aiding 3 teams to either the conference championship or Super Bowl in 4 straight seasons. He led the league in sacks (14) in ’94 leading the Steelers to the AFC Championship then Super Bowl XXX the following season. He then joins the Carolina Panthers in ’96 leading the NFL in sacks again (14.5) and was the impetus in making the NFC Championship Game in their 2nd season of existence. He follows that up going to San Francisco as a designated pass rusher and accumulates another 10.5 sacks as they make the ’97 NFC Championship Game.
Fred Dean, Kevin Greene, Charles Haley, Julius Peppers, Jared Allen, and DeMarcus Ware are all enshrined in Canton. Von Miller will be there one day and with a few more All Pro selections Micah will be there as well. Just understand more than any other position, a prime pass rusher whether from a Defensive End or Outside Linebacker dramatically increases a team’s success more than any other position.
Starting in that 1981 season when I learned the lesson of the importance of the weak side pass rusher. All of a sudden drafting the Left Tackle became a focal point of the offense and many teams lead rebuilds around selecting one in the 1st round. It’s also when you started to see Left Tackle salaries soar. Do you realize in 2025, 23 of the NFL’s 32 teams have their LT in their top 5 highest paid players? If stopping prime pass rushers carries this type of weight what value do the pass rushers have themselves?
Nothing tilts the field for a team’s immediate fortunes like landing a prime pass rusher. Nothing… franchise QBs or all time great running backs don’t get dealt at their zenith.
Again the lessons learned have brought me as a defensive afecionado to writing about these exploits and spreading this with fellow fans. For me it started with Cedrick Hardman & Fred Dean, both of whom I had the chance to meet.
With Cedrick I used to run into him at The White House in Laguna Beach California early 2000s Talked football over many drinks. Same with Fred at the PFHoF hotel in Canton. We’re having a drink at the bar in Canton and I explained the both of them teaching me the lesson of pass rush terrorists and Dean said “Your ass is too young to remember all this zhit” I hit him back… “You know that’s the same muthaphukkin’ thing Cedrick’s ass said.” Great times ….great laughs. I had waited 37 years to shake Dean’s hand and thank him for that lesson.
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2021 AFC East Preview: Division of Game Changers

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Welcome to the 2021 season where Bill Belichick has taken his Patriots down to Miami a full week early to thwart the 2-7 record his team has in away games with the Dolphins. This move mirrors the desperation of not naming an offensive coordinator or defensive coordinator in what looks to be an unceremonious end to Bill Belichick’s career. This will be his last year.

Where does this team turn when they start 0-4?? At Patriots, at Steelers, home to Baltimore then off to Green Bay. Yikes!

Yet elsewhere in the division it’s full speed ahead as Josh Allen and the Bills have become the talk of the league having made several upgrades heading into 2022.

AFC East Champions

  1. Buffalo Bills 13-4**
  2. New York Jets 9-8
  3. Miami Dolphins 6-11
  4. new England Patriots 5-12

The 1st of which is signing former Super Bowl MVP Von Miller to bolster the reigning #1 defense and help school former 1st round DE Greg Rousseau. This should free up DT Ed Oliver from interior double teams as all 3 -1st rounders should be after QBs all season. Schematically this defense played well but needs playmaking game changers and this pass rush has to be that. Just look back to the last :13 in Kansas City.

Jan 23, 2022; Tampa, Florida, USA; Los Angeles Rams outside linebacker Von Miller (40) forces a fumble by Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady (12) during the second half in a NFC Divisional playoff football game at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

Hall of Fame pass rushers shouldn’t fall from the sky and the Bills got the biggest defensive acquisition in football. Miller has 4.5 sacks and 3 forced fumbles in Super Bowl competition. In the ’15 AFC Championship he had 2.5 sacks of Tom Brady and another 4 hits on him to rattle TB12. Then last year it was Von’s sack, forced fumble and fumble recovery on Brady that gave the Rams strategic control of the game sending them to the NFC Championship Game.

However the most improved team in the division is the New York Jets. Drafting Zach Wilson home run speed in OSU WR Garrett Wilson and grabbing CB Sauce Gardner and DE Jermaine Johnson with their #1 picks. Its Wilson taking the top off defenses that will allow Braxton Berrios to continue to be dynamic in the slot. However if 2nd round pick Breece Hall hits at running back this offense has the potential to be one of the best in football. They will mirror Joe Burrow and the weapons  in Cincinnati but they may be one year away from hitting full stride.

Miami will be the middle of the pack team they have been with Tua at quarterback. They did get Tyreek Hill who should turn heads early in the season with bubble screens and turning short gains into big ones early in the season. Yet look to defensive coordinators to figure out Tua’s arm can’t threaten downfield and his affectiveness to be minimized by midseason.

This season of dynamic playmakers begins and ends with Bills QB Josh Allen who could be league MVP with another great season. Completing 409 of 646 for 4,407 yds 36TDs with 15 interceptions had him in last year’s race. His 763 yards rushing will hopefully be lower and he needs to  slide more and not take so many hits. With Diggs (102 rec. 1,225 yds/ 10TDs) back and the emergence of Gabriel Davis (NFL playoff record 4 TDs in KC) this team has no obvious weaknesses. Barring injury this group of playmakers should be playing in early February in Super Bowl LVII.

It all begins by showcasing it Thursday Night against the defending Super Bowl champion Rams on the road. Time for the rubber to hit the road!

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Huge Quarterback Salaries: Feast or Famine?? Part II

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The most interesting offseason since the 1993 advent of free agency culminated with Green Bay resigning Aaron Rodgers to a whopping $50 million per season. Some might argue it’s the return of Tom Brady but its not having the immediate ripple affect like this signing. Now Rodger’s favorite target Davante Adams is unnerved with the franchise tag draped over his wishes to get a new deal. Last we heard he said he wouldn’t play under that designation.

It could be a ploy to get brass to offer a long term contract however ramifications have hit with the release of Za’Darius Smith. He missed almost all of last year but flashed for 26 sacks 5 forced fumbles and earned Pro Bowl berths in his previous 2 years with the club.

These are the first two dominoes to fall in an offseason that still has the Packers nearly $7 million over the cap and the draft is still a month away.

What will happen with Davante Adams and will it affect chemistry when he comes back??

This is the second installment where I’m asking the question on large quarterback deals crippling the rest of the roster. Is it feast or famine??

The ultimate goal is to win the Super Bowl and the huge QB deals have not proven to win you the big game. Before we go any further lets point a few things out:

NFL salary rankings of QBs who won Super Bowl in the last 10 years.
2021. Matthew Stafford 13th highest
2020. Tom Brady 15th highest
2018. Tom Brady 12th highest
2017. Carson Wentz 18th /Nick Foles not available
2016. Tom Brady 18th highest
2015. Peyton Manning 6th highest
2013. Russell Wilson 51st highest
2012. Joe Flacco 16th highest
Take a wild guess when the last time an NFL team with the highest paid quarterback won the Super Bowl?? Try Steve Young in Super Bowl XXIX to conclude the 1994 season. Super Bowl 29?? We’re headed to Super Bowl 57 next February.
Tom Brady reworked his contract on 8 different occassions and its no coincidence he has played on squads with top level talent around the roster. He has made the Super Bowl a bi-annual habit.
Get this.. the Rams won LVI with Stafford as the 13th highest paid while trading away the 6th highest in Jared Goff. So before they nabbed Von Miller from Denver they locked up CB Jalen Ramsey with a contract extension in September.
Its at this point you can see where Devante Adams is coming from. The Rams saved $7 million going from Goff to Stafford and every bit of it was needed to make the roster moves they did. Including Odell Beckham signing for a minimum deal and a chance at immortality.
So a part of the equation when The Chancellor doesn’t pick a mistake prone Dak Prescott $40 million, bypass a polarizing Aaron Rodgers $50 million and looks favorably on the LA Chargers and Justin Herbert on a rookie deal, don’t act surprised.
The ink is just drying on several moves, including the trade they just made for 2 time Taylor Blitz Times Defensive Player of the Year in Khalil Mack. Which looks a lot like the Von Miller deal the Rams used to vault to NFL champion status. Hmmmmmm??
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