Defense wins football games.

A good defense beats a good offense.

The best offense is a good defense.

They’re all football cliches, and, like most cliches, they’re also true. The greatest teams in National Football League history have all featured ferocious and stingy defenses. Occasionally, a defense, or a special unit within a defense, is good and colorful enough to earn a nickname. Since the 1960s, there have been several such nasty and unyielding fraternities. There were the “Purple People Eaters” — the Minnesota Viking front four in the 1960s and 1970s, including Jim Marshall, Carl Eller, Alan Page, and Gary Larsen, and later Doug Sutherland. There was the “Steel Curtain” — the Pittsburgh Steeler front four in the 1970s, including “Mean” Joe Greene, Ernie Holmes, L.C. Greenwood, and Dwight White. Going back a few years, there was the “Fearsome Foursome” — the Los Angeles Ram front four in the 1960s, including Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy, Roosevelt Grier, and Merlin Olsen.

In the 1980s, linebackers became the game’s defensive glamour boys. The New York Giant crew, featuring Lawrence Taylor and Carl Banks, left its impact on many an opposing backfield. The linebacking corps of the Chicago Bears, especially the 1985 Super Bowl-winning squad, took a backseat to no one, at least so long as Mike Singletary was anchoring it. Other teams — the 1970s Oakland Raiders and the 1990s Kansas City Chiefs, to name two — have even built defensive reputations around their agile, hard-hitting secondaries — the cornerbacks and safeties.

You win with defense.

It all starts with defense.

Football is a hitting sport.

The words are trite, but to scrambling quarterbacks and 180-pound halfbacks and 5’11″ wide receivers leaping to reach overthrown balls, the terror never is.