In mid-January, noted analytics wonk Ken Pomeroy wrote an article for The Athletic, talking about how teams with high functioning offenses but sub-par defenses can improve at getting stops. The short version of it is essentially that the teams can trade effort/energy/whatever you want to call it from the offensive end to the defensive end. You get better at defense, but your offense suffers as a result.
The question, of course, then becomes how much of a trade are you willing to make in order to be a halfway respectable defensive squad. If you have the #1 offense and the #100 defense, would you be willing to drop to #10 on offense in order to become #75 on defense?