(defense) led the Broncos to a Superbowl Victory and us to a 4-8 team. I get that it isn't an apples to apples comparison. Their (the Broncos) defense was better than ours and their offense less inept. But they won games despite having a worse offense in almost every game they played.

The examples you spoke of all led to losses. So again the defense allowed us to lose by less points in slowing down the game with long possessions and open receivers (easy to get open when you know what the defense is running).

Also what would have happened if we created a turnover against LSU in plus territory and the offense was able to get some confidence with a short field? We will never know as instead of playing to win we just let them hit us with body blow after body blow.