For as long as we can remember, the oldest saying in the National Football League has been, “offense wins games, but defense wins championships!” But in today’s NFL, that’s simply not the case anymore.

The last two super bowl champions, The Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots won their rings scoring 41 and 34 points, respectively, with hardly any defense being played during those games.

The NFL has trended toward more of a safe approach in the last couple of years that makes playing defense that much harder, and they didn’t help the defensive guys this past offseason either. In fact, they made playing defense impossible.

This past offseason, the NFL Competition Committee passed a number of rules and changed a number of points of emphasis, including new kickoff rules and usage of the helmet.

But the most important changes were adding more protection to the ball carriers on offense, meaning the defense can hardly deliver bone-crushing hits anymore. They added more protection to the quarterbacks, or their “moneymakers,” making it nearly impossible to hit them any longer.

And lastly, they are focusing more on illegal contact calls down the field, meaning no more touching receivers as they are going for the ball.

Part of these rules is, of course, safety, but also there are business decisions involved as well. The average NFL fan does not want to turn on the game and watch a 6-3 defensive battle, they want to see highlight plays and offensive explosions.

These changes have set up offenses perfectly to succeed and they are not failing to produce. During the 2018 season, through six weeks, the NFL has broken numerous offensive records. There have been 4,489 points scored, 504 touchdowns and 328 touchdowns passes, the most in NFL history.

On top of that, there are six quarterbacks on pace to pass for 5,000 yards, something that has never been done in NFL history.

If you look around the NFL today, the best teams are not the teams with the great defenses. In fact, there are very few “great” defenses left in the NFL.

The best defensive teams are probably the Baltimore Ravens and the Jacksonville Jaguars. One in complete turmoil, Jacksonville, and the other struggles whenever they face a legitimate offense, as they proved in their week seven loss vs the Saints.

People around the NFL, general managers and owners among them, have realized defense is not how you win in today’s NFL. If they haven’t realized yet, they soon will.

Teams have started to hire coaches who are offensive-minded and are creative offensively.

The top three Super Bowl 53 favorites, according to Vegas, are the Los Angeles Rams, Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots, all of which can light you up with a schematic offensive and cannot stop you defensively. Yet they are still Super Bowl favorites.

As the NFL continues to move towards this direction, more and more teams are going to realize offense is the key.

Even if your opponent has a good defense, it’s next to impossible to defend everything these great schemes throw at you.

In today’s NFL, if you have a halfway decent defense, but a great offense and offensive scheme, you are going to be one of the favorites to win the Super Bowl.