Would you rather have a great quarterback with a terrible team or a bad quarterback with a great team?
Hopefully your team is on the better side of each category, but if you had a choice as a fan which would you choose?
Let’s make it a more descriptive hypothetical. I’m going to put Aaron Rodgers, who in my opinion is the best quarterback in the NFL, on the Chicago Bears, who in my opinion is the least talented team in the league.
To be fair, the Bears are 0-2 and also have a -33 point difference, the worst in the league.
So what record could Aaron Rodgers get out of the Bears? Could they make the playoffs?
We’ll never know the true answer of the question and the hypothetical leaves a lot of variables to chance but for fun, I’d say Aaron Rodgers is worth four to five wins by himself. For the Bears, a team with let’s say 4-12 talent, he could get them to 8-8 or 9-7.
He’d get the most out of their skill-position stars Matt Forte, Alshon Jeffrey and Martellus Bennett. And minimize the struggles of their offensive line with hot routes and his quick release.
But, he’d have a hard time scoring 40 points a game to offset the Bears defense which has given up 79 points through two games.
They’d likely fall just short of the playoffs.
On the other end, let’s take the defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. We’ll take off Tom Brady and give them Texans quarterback Ryan Mallett, who has the lowest completion percentage in the NFL (49.3).
With Mallett at the helm, the Patriots’ flaws would become more apparent. Lack of talent at running back and interior offensive line would make New England one-dimensional.
Playing in possibly the best defensive division in football, the AFC East, it’d be tough to see Mallett scoring enough to offset the Patriots’ lapses at cornerback and along the defensive line.
The Patriots would be significantly worse with Mallett, enough to drop them about four or five games. Coming off a 12-4 season, that would put New England in the 7-9 to 8-8 area.
Comparing the two teams, I’ve concluded an Aaron Rodgers-led Bears team would be better than a Ryan Mallett-led Patriots squad.
Therefore, ignoring the many variables involved, I’d choose a great quarterback with a bad team rather than the opposite. It’s still a quarterback league.
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Cameron Wolfe: cwolfe@denverpost.com or
