I make essentially this point all the time. Trying to build through defense can get you a championship by shooting the moon but it's just not sustainable. Players get old, injured, expensive, regress, etc. Nobody remembers the 88 Bears, 02 Ravens, 04 Bucs, etc. The Broncos finished last in their division two years after winning the super bowl a few years ago. The recent Seahawks are the closest a team has done to sustained excellence through defense, but even they had a ton of turnover they were just fantastic at drafting and developing replacements. And obviously getting Russell Wilson has kept them competitive since.

It's especially true in our case since the dominant 2017 defense was largely built with trades/FA. 9 of the 14 players you listed as key contributors were not drafted by us. It was inevitable that we would lose a lot of pieces and Dave's drafting and Marrone/Wash's developing has simply been far too poor to sustain it.

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