Brees prolific, but Rodgers more valuable

Drew Brees broke an NFL passing record this season that was older than Microsoft Windows. He led the Saints to a 13-3 record and, over the last seven games, had a touchdown-to-interception differential of 25-3.

He threw for 5,476 yards and completed 71.2 percent of his passes, directing an offense faster and better than anything your Wii remote could handle, a quarterback more popular in New Orleans than Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras.

Which is why the league's Most Valuable Player Award should be a runaway winner.

His name: Aaron Rodgers.

Hands down. It's not close.

Excuse me for not getting all starry-eyed and caught up in the video game numbers Brees produced, but how is this even a debate?

How could those with a vote need more than a minute to consider the resumes of both quarterbacks and not conclude Rodgers the more deserving one?

You can stop writing hate emails from Louisiana now. This isn't anti-Brees anything. There hasn't been a better NFL quarterback the past five years.

There are Chargers fans this very minute downing the final drops of a Jose Cuervo bottle while stumbling up and down some remote beach (ah, memories) and bemoaning the fact San Diego allowed Brees to walk away in 2006. Brees has been as good as there is under center since.

(Of course, they're also downing tequila and stumbling up and down some remote beach because Norv Turner is returning as coach. Talk about something that will cause one to drink heavily.)

You can also stop the Matt Flynn gibberish, that because of one terrific afternoon by the Green Bay backup while Rodgers rested, any statistics from a Packers quarterback are more system-produced than anything.

Every team runs a system. Denver runs an offensive system, for heaven's sake, although it's now dummied down to a youth flag football level because a guy built like a linebacker who kneels a lot and seems to have some pretty serious religious convictions runs it.

Guys execute a system or they don't. Flynn had one great game. Rodgers had 14 wins.

In the here and now of this season, Rodgers has no equal when it comes to who should be announced the award's winner at Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. He should rank ahead of Brees and Tom Brady and anyone else included in an MVP argument.

Efficiency is defined as "the state or quality of being efficient." Those in the NFL define it as the thing a quarterback must be in order to achieve greatness. Rodgers was more efficient for the Packers this season than a Pellet stove heating a Wisconsin home during winter.

His quarterback rating of 122.5 is an NFL record and a cheesehead hat short of astonishing. The perfect criteria for evaluating a quarterback's play doesn't exist, but the rating is as close as you will get. Rodgers smashed it, the only quarterback ever to throw for 4,000 yards and six or fewer interceptions in a season.

A perfect NFL rating, which calculates completion percentage, passing yardage, touchdowns and interceptions, is 158.3 on any given Sunday. Rodgers had one of 110 or better for 11 straight weeks.

The guy was a monster this season, all the while making sure his team would own home-field advantage throughout a playoff tournament the Packers are favored to win again. He is surrounded by arguably the league's best offensive skill, and yet it's not as if Brees played this season with a bunch of guys from your local pickup beer league.

But yards are sexier than a rating that tests your algebraic skills, which is why Brees chasing and ultimately passing Dan Marino's 27-year record received a national media lovefest, while Rodgers accounting for the most efficient season by a quarterback in league history was barely mentioned.

Voters overthink the room, be it when deciding an MVP in the NFL or if Gonzaga or Creighton should get the final placement in a weekly Top 25 basketball poll. They get caught up in sexy and forget that Rodgers had just one bad game to three for Brees, that he threw eight fewer interceptions than Brees, that his yardage and touchdown numbers were better on a percentage basis.

Brees was much like Virginia Commonwealth of last year's NCAA Tournament, coming on late with some fantastic performances to challenge for something most already assumed would go to another. Brees was terrific. Has been for years.

The MVP debate, however, shouldn't be one. People are arguing about it for argument's sake.

Aaron Rodgers. Hands down.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.