Should Tom Brady win the MVP this season even if he missed four games due to suspension? That’s a matter for voters to figure out. Based on numbers and his team’s achievements, Brady is the best quarterback in the NFL, and it’s not even close.

Brady is second in the NFL so far this season with a 70.4% completion percentage, second in yards per attempt (9.3), is tied with Dak Prescott for a league-best +15 when it comes to touchdowns vs interceptions (just one so far) and also has the best passer rating in the NFL at 123.3. But this isn’t just Brady working in revenge mode this season. Ever since the famous Kansas City game in which he got hit from every possible direction and the sky seemed to be falling on him and the Pats due to a 2-2 start, Brady has been better than anyone else in the league. It helps having Bill Belichick as a coach, and a behemoth like Rob Gronkowski for a tight end, but at the end of the day it’s Brady on the field doing the quarterback job better than anyone else in the league, and not just this season. 

Since that day in Kansas City, when Brady got benched for Jimmy Garoppolo, he’s been incredible, throwing 81 touchdown passes and 15 interceptions in 34 games, completing over 65% of his passes and posting a 105.9 passer rating. If you remember, Belichick was asked if he was going to bench Brady from now on and go with Garoppolo.

Other notable quarterbacks since week 5 of the 2014 season:

• Aaron Rodgers, since week 5 of the 2014 season, has 85 touchdown passes to 19 interceptions, completing 62.7% of his passes and posting a 99.5 passer rating
• Drew Brees has thrown 84 touchdowns but also 33 interceptions, completing 69% of his passes while posting a 100.9 passer rating
• Russell Wilson has thrown 57 touchdowns to 16 interceptions, completing 65% of his throws, posting a 100.8 passer rating
• Philip Rivers has 71 touchdowns and 41 interceptions with a 64.8% completion percentage and a passer rating of 91.4
• Ben Roethlisberger has 67 touchdowns to 30 interceptions, completing 66.6% of his passes and posting a 98.6 passer rating

While Brady hasn’t been the only good quarterback over the last two years and six weeks, he’s been better than the rest. Maybe it’s a system thing more than it is him being the best of all-time or the best right now. In the end it doesn’t matter, because the Patriots can’t stop winning, looking like they’re on the way to another bye week in the postseason, and probably finishing with the best record in the AFC. Whether Brady wins the MVP or misses out on it because he didn’t play four games at the start of the season won’t really matter if at the end of this season he has a fifth Super Bowl ring on his finger. What’s probably more worrisome to their rivals is that he probably won’t be satisfied with another championship either.