The problem with this line of thinking is that stars do not have enough of an impact in the NFL to carry a team all by themselves.

Fact #1 — there are eleven players on the field per team at any given time (not five like in the NBA)

Fact #2 — players play only offense or defense, not both (as in the NBA)

This means that any given player, no matter how good, only occupies about 4% of his team’s playing time (50% of snaps/11 players per team). Compare that to the NBA, where a star player will occupy 15–20% of his team’s playing time.

And that doesn’t even account for the fact that NFL players get injured much more frequently than players in other sports.

Having solid depth and good players at every position is much more important in the NFL than having a handful of superstars.