Is it better for an NFL team to “bottom out” and win three or four games or consistently be around or over .500, even making the playoffs only to receive a first-round exit? Recent history tells us that unless you have a big-time quarterback, you’re really just wasting time until you get one.

We’re going to look at a few teams that are in “quarterback purgatory,” which means having a guy who is pretty good most weeks but ultimately can’t get you to the Super Bowl. The biggest problem with being in quarterback purgatory is that the teams that are in it often don’t realize that they’re in the situation and even if they do, they are winning too many games to draft a viable replacement and get out.

Cincinnati Bengals

There is no better example of QB purgatory than what Andy Dalton has put the Bengals in. Cincy has a very good roster, but they seem just as far away from a Super Bowl as teams like Oakland and Jacksonville. Dalton has proven year in and year out that he’s a functional quarterback in the regular season whose highs are relatively high but his lows are downright abysmal. He can’t elevate his team in the postseason and, each January, Bengals fans are left disappointed and we really don’t know whether Marvin Lewis is a good, elite, average or even bad coach.

Dalton makes the playoffs every year, which means that the team is usually in the position that a late-first round rookie will not be better than him, yet he isn’t good enough to get the team to where it needs to be.

Trading up in the first round for a quarterback usually comes with a steep price tag, but that may be the best decision for a team whose core gets older every year as their window of opportunity is closing.

Chicago Bears

The Bears have seemed to finally realize the situation they are in with Jay Cutler under center, but his contract will likely lead to new head coach John Fox and the rest of the Bears’ new front office giving it one more college try. Where Andy Dalton doesn’t have an elite arm, Cutler absolutely does, but his intangibles are terrible and he fails despite having great personnel around him.

Cutler is attractive to ego-driven head coaches as he has all the physical tools to be very successful, and they believe he just needs to be “coached up.” Honestly, if quarterback guru Marc Trestman couldn’t do it, it doesn’t appear as if anyone else will.

As long as the Bears have Cutler on the roster and don’t look to the draft for a replacement, they are living in QB purgatory.

Philadelphia Eagles

Chip Kelly is a fantastic NFL coach and his system couldn’t be much more “quarterback friendly.” With that said, the Eagles are not going to be able to get to where they need to be with their current group of quarterbacks.

Nick Foles has mediocre talent and following a 2013 season in which he caught the league by storm (27 touchdowns, two interceptions), he immediately came back to Earth (13 touchdowns, 10 interceptions) before his season ended with an injury.

Kelly will win games by out-scheming his opponents, but that gets him no closer to having the franchise quarterback he needs to take home a Lombardi Trophy.

Arizona Cardinals

Sometimes QB purgatory is an improvement from where you’ve been in recent seasons as a franchise. That’s the situation that the Arizona Cardinals are in. Carson Palmer isn’t quite good enough to get Arizona into the Super Bowl, but he is good enough to keep the Cards in contention and knocking on the playoff door.

In two seasons under Bruce Arians, the Cardinals have won 21 regular season games. In the three years prior to Arians’ arrival, the team won just 18 games. Arizona is an improving team, but they don’t have the talent at quarterback to get to that next level.

Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs have been a solid team since Andy Reid took over as head coach prior to the 2013 season. They’ve won 20 games and earned a playoff appearance in 2013.

Unfortunately, as solid as the Chiefs’ running game and overall roster is, they have the wrong man under center to get to where they need to be. Alex Smith is the ultimate game manager, and he normally won’t beat his own team. Unfortunately, he doesn’t throw down field well enough to beat elite defenses or even mediocre playoff defenses.

K.C. poses a bad matchup for good teams from time to time, but they can’t make any real noise until they get a better quarterback. With the duo of Andy Reid and Alex Smith, the Chiefs will always be selecting far enough down in the draft to not get an upgrade on Smith.

Detroit Lions

The Detroit Lions are a sexy team with offensive weapons that would make any quarterback salivate. They also have a strong-armed quarterback in Matt Stafford with first-overall pick pedigree, but at this point in his career it seems like we know what Stafford is; an inconsistent, erratic thrower of the football.

The Lions are married to Stafford financially, and internally they believe that he is the guy who will take them to where they need to be. Unfortunately, they seem to be wrong.

Stafford is a much better fantasy quarterback than reality quarterback and he’s too erratic of a passer to get the Lions three playoff victories. He’s actually still waiting for his first playoff victory. The Lions might be in the worst kind of QB purgatory – the kind that they won’t admit to.

Under Stafford, the Lions will keep their manta, “Rebuilding since 1957.”