Shows toppers.(Baltimore Ravens)

The overall defensive thrust this season, culminating with the Ravens' suffocating victory over the Giants, produced a less-than-memorable season and finish. But fear not, offenses will be back within two years.

They have the self-proclaimed best defense in NFL history, and whether that is true or not, it certainly was inspired enough for the Ravens to capture Super Bowl 35 in a most powerful fashion. And until this league changes, this is the way it will be. We will have Super Bowls that will be dominated by defensive teams like the Ravens even when they feature bland quarterbacks like Trent Dilfer guiding offenses that play not to lose.

And the result will be, as we found last Sunday, a championship game limited in excitement, uneven in its quality of play and vulnerable to setting such yawn-generating records as total punts by both teams. You walk away from Baltimore's 34-7 victory over the Giants truly impressed with the Ravens' amazing defensive quickness, continuity and determination--and their ability to back up cockiness with results. You know this is a defense for the ages, but neither team was good enough offensively to produce a game for the ages, and that's the rub.

As long as defenses rule the league, Super Bowls will never be memorable. But don't fret. This defensive bullying, both in this championship game and the league in general this season, will not be a lasting trend. Indeed, it is just a glitch on the NFL pizzazz meter that may fizzle within another year or two. So if you hated this fall, if you were turned off by this Super Bowl, be patient. There is every sign that the stars will return to correct alignment, and offense once again will be restored to its proper place as the lead dog that pulls the league's popularity.

And when we talk "stars" here, let's be specific. We are talking quarterbacks, and the fact the NFL is going through a transition period at the position is the very reason we found ourselves watching a championship game in 2001 featuring Dilfer and Kerry Collins. These were two of the least glamorous players to be starting quarterbacks in a Super Bowl, a pairing unmatched in the history of this QB-driven game. But they are an accurate reflection of the state of the league.

And of Super Bowl 35. Pro football's title game never can be described as unglamorous; the pure nature of the beast, with its array of activities, parties, celebrities, expensive tickets and layers of attention, automatically qualifies it as a special event even if the Bengals am participating. But it's not quite the same as having Brett Favre dueling John Elway (Super Bowl 32) or Troy Aikman taking on Jim Kelly (Super Bowls 27 and 28). So the buildup to this Super Bowl suffered. The major story during the days preceding this game was of Ray Lewis' unrepentant stance regarding the events surrounding a double murder in Atlanta the night of Super Bowl 34 last January. But not much was expected from a matchup between these two flawed teams, even if the Ravens were trying to make a case for their place in history.

And this is what happens when you match a Kerry Collins against a defense as magnificent as the Ravens. You get four interceptions, tying a Super Bowl record, you get an embarrassing 86 net passing yards and 152 total yards--the third lowest in Super Bowl history. You get a quarterback so confused and unsure of himself that by the second half, virtually every pass seemed destined to be picked off. You needed a quarterback who had to be nearly perfect, who had to connect when the rare opportunities popped open, who could stand up against a relentless rush. And Collins did not come close to meeting any of these musts.