Michigan Football's Denard Robinson: Where does he rank among Wolverine QBs?

Denard Robinson is a very unique quarterback for Michigan football. When you think of great Wolverine quarterbacks, you think of guys like Jim Harbaugh, Tom Brady, Elvis Grbac or Chad Henne.

These guys were largely old-school pocket passers, as was the style of football played at Michigan prior to "the Rich Rod experiment." Many of Michigan's past quarterbacks could scramble when needed, but none of them could run like Robinson.

While Rich Rod's spread offense—and the personnel it employed—changed the face of Wolverine football. Robinson is the biggest part of that. His abilities have given the Wolverines a dimension this historic program has never dealt with.

This new dimension is more than just Robinson's ability to run the ball. Its design is to give Robinson every opportunity to make a play, whether it be with his arm or his legs. He's thrived in this offense and has found himself sitting nicely in the Heisman Trophy race.

With all of this in mind, where does Robinson rank among the best Wolverine passers?

That's incredibly difficult to pinpoint. Statistics don't really do the arguments justice. His passing numbers will never be as stellar as the quarterbacks of the past.

His rushing numbers are equally difficult to quantify in terms of comparison because no past quarterback ran as much as he does. It's truly a situation of comparing apples to oranges.

What about wins and losses?

That's not a fair comparison to make. Robinson's offense was one of the most prolific in the conference a year ago. However, the Wolverine defense was so horrific, Michigan lost a lot of games in spite of their offense.

You can't blame Robinson for most—if any—of those losses.

How about grading him based on what he means to the team?

That might be the most fair way to go about it, but how do you quantify what he means to this team versus what others have meant?

Would Michigan have been as good without Henne under center? What about Brady? We don't really know, do we?

While those guys were tremendous leaders for their respective teams, they weren't relied on to do as much as Robinson. Should they be punished for having excellent support around them?

Without Robinson, Michigan's offense would be incredibly handicapped. There's no doubt about that. He has been the primary reason their offense has been so dangerous.

There's one other thing that is a given. If you're going to rank Michigan quarterbacks, you've got to put Robinson high on the list. Whatever criteria you use, whatever argument you make, he has to be in the discussion.

With Shoelace, Michigan's got a good one.