This is how the other half lives, Patriots fans. Welcome to the world of football fans in Buffalo, New York, and Miami, who every year are clasping their hands together and praying to the Football Gods that their quarterback is good enough to win.

This is what it’s like for the have-nots of the NFL, the ones who don’t have a crown jewel QB rendering the playoffs a foregone conclusion and the Super Bowl an expectation, not a daydream.

Thanks to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the yawning gap between actual justice and the legal system’s version, the Patriots have uncertainty at quarterback, instead of Tom Brady, arguably (in some distant precincts) the greatest quarterback of all time, for their season opener Sunday night against the Arizona Cardinals.

It’s Jimmy Garoppolo’s show for the next four games, as Brady serves his Deflategate suspension.

The rest of the NFL is getting what it wanted — the Patriots stripped of their most important natural resource and temporarily reduced to commoner status.

Anyone who says they know with unshakeable certainty what type of NFL quarterback Jimmy G is going to be either has mastered time travel or enjoys bending the truth like a yoga instructor. Sunday is Garoppolo’s first NFL start. The G in Jimmy G could stand for great, good enough, or ghastly.

Ordinary quarterback play is a foreign concept in these parts. That’s for the hoi polloi.

Everyone associated with the Patriots, from ownership to coach Bill Belichick to a passionate fan base, has been blessed to have Brady enrich their football experience. He is the bedrock that the Patriot dynasty has been built upon. Now, the team is on uncertain ground with Garoppolo at the most important position in the game.

This is a premature and unwelcome glimpse of what life could be like after Brady bids professional football and Fort Foxborough adieu. No one knows what a post-TB12 existence will look like for the Patriots.

The hope is that it will be a seamless transition to his successor with continued title contention.

The optimists have maintained that the silver lining of the dark Deflategate cloud is defining what Garoppolo is.

Maybe Garoppolo is the Aaron Rodgers to Brady’s Brett Favre or the Steve Young to his Joe Montana. Maybe Brady’s heir/air apparent is rookie Jacoby Brissett. Or maybe the Patriots will go wandering through the QB wilderness for years in search of their next franchise quarterback, just as the Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins have after Jim Kelly and Dan Marino retired.

Since Kelly retired after the 1996 season, the Bills have had 15 different starting quarterbacks. Since Marino retired following the 1999 season, the Dolphins have had 17.

The Jets? Please. The J-E-T-S haven’t had anything resembling a franchise quarterback since Joe Willie Namath.

Shakespeare wrote in “Hamlet’’ that the play’s the thing. In the NFL, the quarterback is the thing, unless you’re the Denver Broncos.

The Patriots can set a record this season by winning their eighth straight division title. It’s not a coincidence that since Brady rose from obscurity in 2001 that there have only been two seasons in which another team won the AFC East — 2002, Brady’s first full season as a starter, and 2008, when he tore his ACL just 15 offensive snaps into the season.

The Patriots went 11-5 in 2008 without Brady, as Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels did brilliant coaching jobs. But a team that had gone 16-0 the season before still missed the playoffs with Matt Cassel at the controls.

This is different than 2008 because Brady is coming back this season and because the Patriots’ big picture beyond his career no longer requires a telephoto lens.

Brady is 39. He is signed through 2019. He is closer to the end than the beginning, as Belichick is fond of saying. No one wants to admit that, least of all Brady. But it’s true. His biological clock is ticking, and he’s on the clock to become the first quarterback to win five Super Bowls.

Replacing Brady is an unenviable task. He casts a humongous shadow, even without the Hail to TB12 banner looming over Gillette Stadium.

He led the NFL in touchdown passes last season (36). Brady’s 172 regular-season wins are the most by any quarterback with one team. Then there are the four Super Bowl victories and six Super Bowl appearances.

The task got a lot harder for Garoppolo with the news that he’s not going to have Rob Gronkowski or starting left tackle Nate Solder against the Cardinals.

Garoppolo might feel like it’s the last time he was in Arizona, back in 2015, when the Patriots ran him ragged asking him to imitate Russell Wilson on the scout team before Super Bowl XLIX.

Garoppolo has talent. He looks the part of a capable quarterback with his quick release, escapability, and accuracy. But it’s going to be obvious Brady is missing.

“He’s not Tom Brady,’’ said teammate-turned-opponent Chandler Jones. “He’s a different quarterback. But I have seen him make some great throws this preseason and even in my years in New England. He made some great throws in practice that I can recall. He’s not a slouch. He’s definitely not a slouch.’’

Even without the Brady ban, the Cardinals, who won a franchise-record 13 games last season and advanced to the NFC Championship game, are a formidable opponent for the Patriots. But there is no way the Patriots are 6-point underdogs with Brady.

One start isn’t going to determine Garoppolo’s career path. Even Brady wasn’t Brady when he burst onto the scene 15 years ago to usurp Drew Bledsoe.

It took awhile to take the training wheels off Cassel in ’08.

No one expects Garoppolo to set the Patriots back to the days of Hugh Millen.

But for once, the Patriots aren’t exempt from wondering and waiting to see exactly what they have at quarterback. This is what the opening Sunday feels like in less fortunate football locales.

Christopher L. Gasper can be reached at cgasper@globe.com.