I think the 1972 Dolphins would argue that, though. Starting QB Bob Griese misses most of the season with an injury, but the Dolphins still go 14-0 and win the Super Bowl. More often than not you're right, though. It's modern era football though. STL did it with Warner, but that was a preseason injury and resulted in a HOF caliber QB replacing a journeyman. Same thing with New England. You could get away with it if you are a dominant defensive team that hides the QB anyway, but if you rely on your QB for anything your backup isn't going to help. A journeyman QB might help an already decent team hold onto a playoff spot, but that's about it. The best argument I've heard about this is, if they were really concerned about the backup QB situation, the time to worry about it was a few months ago, not 3 weeks into training camp. They tied their horse to the Hanie/LeFevor bandwagon, which doesn't really make me angry as a fan because I know the Bears are done without Cutler in any event. But for those scraps that might be laying out there? Even those guys have had to make other life plans. In at least one case, those plans now prevent the guy from signing here.