LZ Granderson of Page 2 has a nice, short editorial comment today. I couldn’t agree with him more. He summarizes the point we’ve been hammering for the past month:
I hear a low, steady cry in the distance. One that will undoubtedly pick up steam as the Sundays go by and the New England Patriots continue their march toward the Super Bowl.
“Tom Brady is MVP,” is what it says. Well, I would like to introduce another cry to the chorus. “No he is not — it’s Randy Moss.”
Brady has thrown an NFL-best 21 touchdown passes this season and leads the league in QB rating (128.9). Prior to this season — his first with Moss — Brady’s career high in those categories was 28 and 92.6. Not to diminish what Brady has done, but this ain’t nothing new.
In 1997, Marshall’s Chad Pennington set an NCAA record for TD passes by a sophomore with 39 — 24 caught by Moss. Those 24 TDs also set an NCAA record for most QB-to-WR combo scores in a season. In ’98, Randall Cunningham had the finest season of his 16-year career, thanks in large part to Moss, who caught 17 of Cunningham’s 34 TD passes. The Vikings went 15-1 with an NFL-record 556 points. Daunte Culpepper threw 64 TD passes in his two best seasons (’03 and ’04), and Moss caught 30 of them.
I’m not saying Brady isn’t an excellent quarterback, and I’m not saying he isn’t worthy of praise for the Pats’ incredible start. But put your man crush aside for a moment and think about this: while Brady may be the best quarterback Moss has ever played with — this, according to Moss himself — Brady might be playing with the best receiver anyone’s ever played with.
Like HGH, Moss can take a very good player and make him an all-time great. And if you didn’t reward Culpepper and Cunningham for their Moss-enhanced seasons, you certainly can’t turn a blind eye to what No. 81 has done for Brady. But what you can do is give the skinny kid from West Virginia his long overdue credit and name him MVP.
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