Chawker presents us with the best question of the last decade; Which position has the greatest importance on having a successful NFL defense?
My initial reaction would be... The defensive coordinator that can either collect, draft, or develop all of the players he needs in order to field a squad that can play in a way that most of the opposing team's offenses cannot effectively react to, but that doesn't really answer the question.
I'm considering the Steelers defense from the mid 1970's up until 1980. Da Bears 46 defense in 1985 and 1986. Perhaps the best current defenses of this year, including the Baltimore Ravens & San Francisco 49'ers...
Can't say that I have an exact answer as to which "position" is the most important, but I will offer the following... Give me a defense that has a highly talented young player to build around at all three levels; defensive lineman, line backer, and defensive back.
Any defense that has a at least one player at each level mentioned above, seems to have a real chance of adding future players that can become a dominant unit on defense.
How many more years will it be until this team brings in another young stud defensive tackle like Cortez Kennedy, or even a Brian Mebane?
What is their long-term solution at middle linebacker, or even the free side inside linebacker?
Seems to me that this team has an abundance of highly talented young players at cornerback (Devon Witherspoon, Tre Brown, Ty Woolen, Michael Jackson), but somehow this team is not able to take advantage of all that cornerback talent?
I'm as perplexed as everybody else is (sigh)....