He's played the season with only one legitimate starting WR. The team's big free-agency signing to replace one of the league's better TE's only played a handful of games. Ryan, Carr and Prescott would have been lucky to win 9 games with the same situation at their skill positions.
Let's be serious. He had the best WR in football for the entire season, and had arguably the best RB in football (he and David Johnson are 1a and 1b) for 13 of the 16 games (and DeAngelo was a beast those first three games). If that's not being set up to succeed, I don't know what it is. Matt Ryan did just fine with a bunch of WR castoffs and no-name TE to go along with his stud WR and RBs. Prescott was throwing to Cole Beasley and Terrence Williams at WR for a while when Dez Bryant was out, and did just fine. Carr resurrected the career of Crabtree, who looked done.
Sorry, but the "Roethlisberger is elite" is the biggest crock of shit in pro football right now.
None of those guys have shown the ability to win consistently year after year like Ben has. True, Dak is only at the beginning of his career, but that only means that the best anyone can do is guess. Matt Ryan has had elite weapons for his entire career, including arguably the best TE to ever play the game for a few of those years and he's only been a legitimate SB contender once.
Let's start with some basic stats:
1. He's one of only six QB's to have victories over 31 teams in his career.
2. He had a better record in his rookie campaign than Dak. His first start was the 2nd game of the season and he didn't lose until the AFC Championship game against Brady.
3. He has the fourth highest career winning percentage as a starter in the regular season among quarterbacks with a minimum of 100 starts.
4. He currently ranks 9th all-time in NFL passer rating, tied for 6th in yards per attempt, and tied for 10th in completion percentage among quarterbacks with a minimum of 1,500 career attempts.
5. His worst regular season record is 8-8. Never a losing season.
As far as this season goes, he didn't have Bell for "13 of 16 games". They both were rested the final week of the season, and Ben missed a game due to his knee surgery. That makes it 11 of 14. Speaking of his knee, he was injured in the first half and other than a series or two when the team used Landry Jones, he played over a half of football with a knee that needed surgical repair and it showed. His numbers in that game, and the game that he made his return from the surgery were abysmal. Arguably poor enough to have a serious impact on the numbers for the rest of the season. I won't lie, his performances against Philly and Buffalo weren't exactly pretty, either.
He's proven to be superior to the two QB's that were drafted ahead of him. He's second among active QB's for championship/super bowl appearances. What more can you ask of him?