Only one game into the season, two teams with Super Bowl-caliber defenses and last place caliber offenses will try new signal callers this week. The Baltimore Ravens will replace the injured Kyle Boller with Anthony Wright when they visit the Titans on Sunday and the Washington Redskins will replace the ineffective Patrick Ramsey with Mark Brunell when they travel to Dallas on Monday night.

A pair of coordinators who learned from defensive guru Buddy Ryan might give Ravens and Redskins fans confidence that defense wins championships, but looking at them objectively, it’s hard to imagine either team making a playoff run with such an inept player at the helm on offense.

Baltimore capped the 2000 season with a Super Bowl title thanks mostly to its defense, which has been dominant ever since. The unit’s leader, Ray Lewis, has declined in recent seasons, but the defense as a whole has persevered thanks to the drafting of Ed Reed, one of the league’s best defensive backs, and Terrell Suggs, one of the league’s best pass rushers. The aggressive, attacking 46 defense that new coordinator Rex Ryan learned from his father (who led the great Chicago Bears defenses of the 1980s) is a perfect fit for athletic players like Reed and Suggs.

But is any defense good enough to carry a team with the Ravens’ stagnant offense? Boller, who’s expected to miss 2-3 weeks with a hyper-extended toe, ranked second-to-last in quarterback rating last year, so the Ravens aren’t much worse off with Wright. A seven-year veteran, Wright has completed just half the passes he’s ever attempted, and has fumbled 17 times in 16 games. But regardless of who’s taking the snaps, this team is in for another year with an offense that makes them hope to be on the right end of a lot of 7-3 games.

If the Ravens epitomize great defense and weak quarterbacks, Washington has followed closely in their footsteps. While building their own Top 5 defense, the Redskins also spent a 2002 first-round pick on Ramsey, then inexplicably spent $8.6 million in 2004 on Brunell’s signing bonus only to take Jason Campbell in this year’s first round.

When Joe Gibbs started his second stint with the Redskins last season, fans expected to see a return of the great Redskins offenses of the 1980s. Instead, one of Gibbs’s few wise decisions was hiring defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.

Williams’s schemes, which he learned as a Ryan assistant in the 1980s, allow the safeties to attack at the line of scrimmage. Although the Redskins lost linebacker Antonio Pierce and cornerback Fred Smoot to free agency this year, they also made a little-noticed move that should keep them among the league’s top defenses: They signed underrated safety Pierson Prioleau, who played for Williams in Buffalo and is extremely quick in pursuit. The Redskins’ defense could be every bit as good this year as it was last year.

But the offense could be every bit as bad. Brunell was once an excellent running threat – 10 years ago. Age and injuries have turned him into a pocket passer, which was never his strength. Brunell played horribly in nine games last season, averaging 133 yards per game through the air. But Gibbs seems to like him personally and used the first opportunity he had – Ramsey leaving Sunday’s game with a neck sprain – to make him the starter. Ramsey is healthy, but Gibbs says Brunell is his guy. That spells another frustrating year for the Redskins’ offense.

As great a defensive coach as Buddy Ryan was, he’s best remembered for punching offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride when the two worked together in Houston. Ryan socked Gilbride because the offense threw a game away despite the best efforts of his defenses. This year, Ryan’s proteges in Washington and Baltimore will know exactly how he felt.

Mr. Smith writes for the statistical Web site FootballOutsiders.com.