The Patriots' Tom Brady is 9-0 as a playoff starter. Bill Frakes/SI

I'm gonna jump the gun here a bit. By about three months. I've figured out who the NFL's MVP is this season and I'm going to be the first one into the water on this. You ready?

Tom Brady, come on down and pick up your hardware.

Too early? Too bad. I've sat around and watched Brady get stiffed in the MVP balloting the past two years and I'm determined not to let it happen again. So I'm throwing all my considerable clout into this campaign and calling in all my markers. Both of 'em.

I happen to be one of the Associated Press MVP electors and I intend to vote Brady. Early and often.

Be it just three weeks into the season or playing it by the book and waiting three more months, it won't make a difference. Brady has been the NFL's most valuable player (no capital letters needed) for three years running and it's high time we all recognized him for it.

What exactly are we waiting for people? To make sure he's not a fluke? OK, that made sense in those heady days of 2001, but what about the rest of Brady's historic run? When will we have seen enough to realize we're watching the best there is at the game's most critical position? Better than Peyton Manning and Steve McNair, who have earned the past two MVPs. Better than the revered Brett Favre, or the prolific Daunte Culpepper, or the far-too-one-dimensional Michael Vick. Better than the proven Donovan McNabb and the proficient Ben Roethlisberger, the last two guys he out-dueled last season.

I've had it with the fantasy football approach to the MVP award: Who has the best numbers?

Brady loses out every year because he doesn't have eye-popping statistics, but in truth he has numbers galore; they're just not the kind that fall into one calendar year and win you MVP votes. A 9-0 record as a playoff starter; 18 wins when the Pats were either tied or trailing in the fourth quarter; a 7-0 mark in overtime; a record of 59-15 (.797) as a starter, the best mark of any quarterback in the Super Bowl era; going an entire season (2003) without throwing an interception at home.

Oh, yeah, and then there are those three Super Bowl rings he won before his 28th birthday. Those seven other quarterbacks I mentioned earlier? They own a combined one Super Bowl ring between them.

Consider that Roethlisberger has lost exactly two games in his meteoric NFL career, and, coincidentally, both have come when Brady was the opposing quarterback. Manning? Besides not being able to beat Brady head-to-head, he can only dream of doing what Brady has done three times over -- leading a team to a Super Bowl title.