what's killing the Saints right now is lack of talented depth

The Bengals wrecked the league with Browning for 7 or so games last year. The Chiefs still found major success with Henne when Mahomes was injured, once or twice even in playoffs. Payton still went 9-8 with Drew Brees missing many, many, many games.

All the teams you listed with the exception of the Dolphins have coaching issues, the Saints just being the worst. The scenarios I listed all have good coaches.

The difference, coaching.

Are we seriously using the Chiefs as a standard here or categorizing a Bengals team that finished 9-8 with Browning going 4-3 as a starter as wrecking the league?