FOXBORO -- The chants in the Superdome rained down in the closing minutes of Sunday's rout of the Carolina Panthers. "M-V-P...M-V-P...!" They were directed at Drew Brees. Meanwhile, the league's true MVP, Aaron Rodgers (in my opinion for now and probably officially in a few weeks), was watching his understudy Matt Flynn pillage the Detroit Lions defense. At Gillette Stadium, Tom Brady was finishing off another ho-hum season of remarkable play in a career that's been taken for granted nationally and -- in recent years -- locally. Passing statistics can never be the barometer by which a quarterback is solely measured. The most important statistics in my opinion are team wins, interceptions, yards per attempt, completion percentage, touchdowns passes, team touchdowns andred zone efficiency. In that order. Since Rodgers' team won 15 games and he had the best TD-INT ratio (45-6) and threw his 45 touchdown passes on 502 attempts while Brees needed 155 more attempts to throw 46 and Brees' team won 13 games while he threw 14 picks, it's pretty cut and dried who the better quarterback was despite what the Superdome crowd thought. And the same holds true with Rodgers over Brady. But which quarterback was better in 2011, Brees or Brady? Here are the numbers:BREES
468 for 657 (71.2 percent) for 5,476 yards. 46 TDs, 14 INTs. YPA: 8.3. 62 offensive TDs. Red Zone TDs: 58.67. TD pctg: 7.0. INT pctg: 2.1.BRADY401 for 611 (65.6 percent) for 5,235 yards. 39 TDs, 12 INTs. YPA: 8.6. 57 offensive TDs. Red Zone TDs: 65.28. TD pctg: 6.4. INT pctg: 2.0When you analyze the two, Brees threw touchdowns at a higher rate per attempt, was more accurate and presided over a more explosive offense. Bradythrew longer -- or got more YAC from his throws -- led an offense that was far better in the red zone and was incrementally better in terms of picks per pass. Intwo of the Saints losses -- to St. Louis and Tampa Bay -- Brees played pretty badly against bad teams. He threw a total of five picks. The Patriots lost three and all were to teams that were either good -- Pittsburgh and the Giants -- or playing well. But Brady's four picks against Buffalo were a major reason New England lost. And to be honest about it, if we're discussing which great quarterback lost to worse teams, we've gone a little further in the discussion than we need to. Brees was better than Brady in 2011. And both were great.