Good morning Rumblers,

I hope you all had a great weekend. For most of us, I guess we're back to the hustle and bustle of the work week.

Today's "Joe", we're going to talk about mediocre play at the QB position. On Thursday I wrote a post titled "Morning Joe! Where Does Fitzpatrick Rank Amongst Starting QBs", which was part 1 of a 2 part post. My intentions was to post this on Friday, but to my surprise I still had people commenting and voting on Friday, so I decided to hold off until today.


What I gathered from the votes and comments is that the majority (94%) of us Rumblers agree that Fitzpatrick is an average to slightly below average QB in this league in comparison to other starting QBs. However, most Rumblers do agree that Fitz can approve his level of play under the tutelage of Coach Lee, but there were a few individuals who still remain skeptical. They just didn't believe that an 8 year vet can approve his mechanics so much that will catapult him to a top QB in this league.

But forget all of this. Fitz is what he is at this point, and for the most part, 94% of us agree that we will be going in to this season with an average QB at best. The question that I pose to you Rumblers is, Can THIS team win with mediocre play at QB?

To answer this question, you must ask yourself several questions:

1. How is it that YOU define winning?

2. As the team exist today, are we good to excellent in other areas to compensate for mediocre or average play at QB? Meaning: Can we run the ball consistently to keep the QB out of difficult positions? Do we have adequate depth to survive injuries? Are we good enough defensively to keep the game close when the QB and the offense is struggling? Do we have enough playmakers on both sides of the ball that can a) create great field position and b) generate scores and scoring opportunities? Can specials teams win multiple games for the team? Is Gailey a good enough play caller to protect his QB by calling plays that plays to Fitz strength? Can Gailey effectively manage a game?

3. Has other teams done it in the past; if so what was it that allowed them to win? Do we have those same characteristics or traits (i.e. top 5 Defense or run game) on our team? If not, what's missing?

Lastly, we all know that this is a QB driven league. That's why it's no surprise, that over the past 20 yrs, there have only been 3 mediocre QBs (Brad Johnson-TB, Trent Dilfer-Balt, Mark Rypien-Was) to win a Super Bowl, and the remaining QBs are either in the Hall of Fame, or will be one day or at least is in the discussion. If the end goal is to win the Super Bowl, then what conclusions can be drawn?

Maybe,

1) They believe that Fitz can be one of those mediocre QBs that can win a Super Bowl (15% chance over the past 20 years), or they believe he can become a Hall of Famer QB late in his career a la Kurt Warner (highly unlikely).

2) They believe that Fitz is good enough to get us to the playoffs, but won't get us to the Super Bowl, thus concluding that he is indeed a stop gap for either our future young QB or a "Hall of Fame" caliber free agent QB.

Okay Rumblers, have at it. Is THIS team good enough to "win" with mediocre play at QB?