OK, listen up people: The prohibitive favorite to win the NFL MVP plays for the New England Patriots.

His name should be Randy Moss.

Yes, Randy Moss.

Yes, I know, I know. Tom Brady is allegedly playing at an “elevated level” (love those cliché’s that seems to proliferate among announcers). Brady is on a pace to shatter the NFL record for completion percentage (74%), rating (134.0!), and touchdown passes. In fact, if Brady maintains his pace of 60 TD passes, it will rank with the home run record or Wilt's 50 pomts a game - stupefying and next to unbreakable.

Toss in the relentless John Madden man-crush on Tom Terrific (transferred from Brett Favre) that has been copied by every damn announcer (and you thought Favregasms were bad), and Brady looks like a lock.

Except that it would be wrong.

Go beyond the raw numbers, as impressive as they are for Randy: 66 catches for 1,052 yards and 16 touchdowns, a pace that will threaten the single season yardage record, and obliterate Jerry Rice’s TD record of 22 TD catches in a season. It is even beyond the freakish combination of 4.3 speed, the greatest ball skills in NFL history, and his superb hands that have terrorized every secondary he has faced.

Moss is the only receiver in football that can actually out run a Cover Two. Just ask his former coach Dennis Green as he says here.

"Teams might be in a two-deep [zone, with safeties splitting the back half of the field] but I always said Randy would run through the two-deep. To stop Randy Moss, you needed a deep two-deep."

The normal rules don’t apply to Randy Moss, because even when he’s covered, he’s dangerous, and a bad ball is still catchable.

Not since Bob Hayes frightened the NFL into developing zone defenses has any receiver impacted the league to this magnitude. And the lengths defenses go to contain him open the field for the entire Pats offense.

I know, you still want the MVP to go to Brady. After all, if Troy Aikman says it, it must be true, right? And a receiver is only as good as his quarterback after all.

Ok, try this on:

Exhibit A: Pats at Miami: These two TD catches against the Dolphins. Who else could come down with these balls? Does Brady even throw this pass before this season?

Exhibit B: Pats v. Colts. Colts lead 20-10, Brady is struggling. Brady tosses one deep, Moss beats the Cover Two for a momentum-changing 55 yard play. Pats score soon after to cut it to three, and then score again to preserve their undefeated season.

Exhibit C: These numbers: 92.6, 63.8, and 7.9.

Those are Tom Brady’s previous career highs in passer rating, completion percentage and yards per attempt.

This year those numbers are 134.0, 74.0, and 9.1

Coincidence?

The Pats are on a pace to destroy the season record for points set by the 1998 Vikings led by… Randy Moss.

More coincidence? Come on; say it is, I dare you.

Yes, Brady has Wes Welker, who is having a career season of his own. But Brady has had a Welker in the past – Troy Brown. Nice receiver, but neither he nor Donte Stallworth (2007’s Deion Branch) give cornerbacks and defensive coordinators night sweats.

And Tom Terrific has never had a year like this with Brown and Branch.

As to why Moss is not getting enough love from the press, well, he isn’t loved. Some of that he’s brought on himself. He didn’t cover himself in glory last year in Oakland, but frankly, that was not a professionally run franchise last year. Sorry, but I can’t drop all of the blame at Moss’ feet.

Besides that, many of the same people voting for the MVP love Brady and trashed the trade (including Pats Cheerleader Peter King). It may be too much to ask humbled Moss critics to see the light.

First, they’d have to wipe the egg off their faces.

1. I believe that I will spend the rest of my natural life kicking myself for not drafting Adrian Peterson in the 2nd round like I considered. Me, the Super Genius, like Wile E. Coyote figured that Ned Flanders, uh I mean head coach Brad Childress would be married to the dreaded Chester Taylor/Peterson time-share, and I chose the legendary Tatum Bell instead.

(Insert the Florida Evans, "Damn! Damn! Damn!" right here.) Mind you, this was AFTER I told everyone that A-Pete had Canton potential.

2. While I’m on the subject, I also believe that A-Pete just moved into the Top 3for MVP consideration.

3. I believe that Randy Moss should be ranked higher in the MVP voting than Tom Brady. Yeah, I said it.

Two plays sum it up for me – those two ridiculous TDs against the Dolphins. Don't listen to Ron Jaworski's babble about Brady's placement of the ball - he threw it up into double coverage, and Moss hauls it in. No other human being can make that catch. Randy Moss did it twice. Then on Sunday Moss beats Indy's vaunted Cover Two (designed to stop the deep ball) for a momentum-changing 55 yard pass.

4. I believe I found common ground with Jason Whitlock. Randy Moss is the most physically gifted wideout - EVER. Jerry Rice, Cris Carter, and Fred Bilitenkoff had better hands. Bob Hayes may be faster. Steve Largent ran beautiful routes. But none of them combined 4.28 speed, the 6-4 height, the vertical and the  ability to adjust to the pass in midflight.

5. I believe that Jason Whitlock needs to end the Chad Johnson madness. Chad’s endzone celebrations have nothing to do with the Bengals inability to stop the run. Ocho Cinco’s Hall Of Fame jackets have nothing to do with Odell Thurman’s unwillingness to obey the law.

I had a huge problem with the silly gold teeth (since removed), to all but call Chad an Uncle Tom (“Mr. Bojangles”? Come on Jason…) is hitting low. Yeah, I know that being The Black Scold is good business – especially with an organization as conservative as Fox, and it is sometimes necessary. But I despise hypocricy, and Keyshawn Johnson attempting to condemn The Chad – well, Mr. Pot, meet Mr. Kettle. It is NOT ok because Keyshawn is in the media. Shame on you Jason.

6. I believe that no good quarterback has every possesed the hideous body language that Peyton Manning displays in clutch siutations.

I’m sorry, but when the pressure is on, he looks like Rex Grossman on caffine overload looking for a fix. No one who is so allegedly cerebral as Manning should be as frenetic. When the Colts started that last drive, and Manning dropped back, his body language screamed “Gottathrowitfast gottathrowitfast”…and those two fumbles while being sacked? Grossman-esque.

7. I believe that we can expect more media heads to experience multiple Farvegams in the second half of the season. Brett Favre is experiencing a renaissance because he’s shown consistently better judgement than I have seen from him in a few years.

Simply put, for the first time in years, coach Mike McCarthy has gotten Brett to limit his boneheaded throws that are always ALWAYS glossed over by the media (i.e. “Favre-gasms”) with “Brett is a gunslinger”, “Brett sure is having fun…”

By the way, why wasn’t the game stopped when Brett threw his record-breaking 277th pick? 

8. I believe that the San Diego Chargers lost their first November game in four years on Sunday, and it won't be the last. Marty has got to chuckling.

9. I believe that Hines Ward is a man's man. He blew up Ed Reed and Tom Scott in the SAME GAME? Tell me the last time you saw a 190 pound receiver drop a couple of All-Pro head-hunters in the same CAREER, much less the same game?

10. I believe that Brian Billick has lived off his offensive genius rep for at least five years too long. Blame Randy Moss. Remember, Billick was the offensive coordinator for the record-setting Vikings with the rookie Randy Moss catching 17 TDs, and the team scoring a record 556 points, which may go down in flames to this year's Pats squad.

Since The Offensive Guru moved to B-more, the Ravens have ranked 26th, 21st, 31st, and 24th in yardage the last four seasons. They've never been higher than 14th in the Billick era in any offensive category except once.

Bonus belief: Sebastian Janikowski just missed a would be NFL record 64 yard FG, hitting the upright on a bomb that would have been good from at least 70 yards. And unlike Jason Elam's kick, the stadium in Oakland actually sits BELOW sea level. 

Yet, when or if  the record gets broken, I believe there is something about Tom Demsey’s record-setting kick in 1970 – perhaps it was the posts on the goal line (which meant that Dempsey launched it from his own 37 yard line), the old-school kicking style, or the NFL Films shot from the side…it will always be number one in my book.

Until the next time friends...