It's so easy to take Tom Brady for granted.

As Peter King noted in his Monday Morning Quarterback column this week, Brady is on pace to throw for 4,816 yards and 32 touchdowns with a 65.3 percent completion mark and a 100.6 passer rating, and all those numbers would be down from last year (and all but the passing yards would be down from two years ago). Think about it: Brady is in the middle of easily the best season ever put together by a Patriots quarterback not named Tom Brady and no one around here can get worked up about it. That's how it works when you've hit rarified air, I guess, no one walked around in shock when Mariano Rivera had a 1.91 ERA and 0.89 WHIP two years ago.

Brady is the most consistent great quarterback in history -- he's never had a bad year. Joe Montana had a lousy 1986 (threw more INTs than TDs), Peyton Manning was terrible in 2003 (23 picks for a 6-10 Colts team coming off 13-3 and 10-6 seasons), you can find a season like that for any other guy you'd consider if you are putting together an all-time top 10 list. But not Brady. He's always been over 60 percent passing, he's always had a solid TD over INT edge, he's never finished outside the top 10 in passer rating and his teams have had a winning record every year he's been a starter. If you had to pick the worst season of Brady's career it would probably be 2002, and all he did that year was the lead the NFL in touchdown passes. 

Now Brady is the greatest old quarterback in NFL history. OK, the greatest late-middle-age quarterback. No one has played the position in his mid-30s anywhere close to the level we've seen from Brady the last 2 1/2 seasons. Since the start of the 2010 season Brady has a 32-8 record with 91 touchdowns and 19 interceptions (three more interceptions than Tony Romo has this season). This all has been done between the ages of 33 and 35, just incredible stuff. Yup, the league has changed plenty over the last couple of decades, and 35 years old in 2013 is a lot different than 35 years old was in 1983, but this has been remarkable and unprecedented and yet kind of under the radar. 

Any reasonable ranking of the league's top QBs still has to have Brady -- coming off his best game of the season vs. the Rams in London -- somewhere in the top three, right? We've seen nothing this year to change that view. But, at the midpoint of the season for the Patriots, has Brady done enough to be in the mix for his third MVP award? Let's take a look at the top five candidates.

5. Tom Brady 

That was fast, huh? Just sneaks in, but there is no runaway winner and I'd ask this: If Brady throws, say, 24 TDs against three picks in the second half (not impossible) and the Patriots win seven of their last eight (not impossible) how will he look as a candidate? That would be 40 touchdowns and six picks (with probably about 5,000 yards passing) for a 12-4 team with an average-at-best defense and some injury issues on the offensive line. Guys have won MVPs with credentials short of that. Right now, though, Brady is just one of five or six quarterbacks having terrific seasons, and he's done it for a team that has to be viewed as having underachieved at 5-3. Also Brady did not play well in two losses -- Arizona and Seattle. If he's clean in those two games the Patriots are 7-1. Tough standard? Sure, but that's the difference between winning and now winning the MVP.

4. J.J. Watt  

The last defensive player to win the MVP was Lawrence Taylor in 1986, probably the best defensive player in history at the peak of his powers. In the 25 years since Taylor won, the award has gone to either a running back or quarterback every time (mostly quarterbacks -- 19 times, including the last five seasons). I'm sure the winner this year will be a quarterback -- in this era, the numbers are just going to be impossible to ignore -- but Watt is on pace for 21 sacks for a team that is 7-1 with one of the top two or three defenses in the NFL. Again, if this team wins 13, 14 games and he's the Defensive Player of the Year, he has to be given serious consideration.

3. Aaron Rodgers

OK, he's really, really short and he's really, really sensitive about it. We all have our weak spots, I'm not particularly enamored with my hairline. I've been hearing Phil Collins jokes for the last 20 years, and they all hurt. Aaron and I are only human. Look, this is another example of a truly great player putting up historic numbers in an era when it's tough to furnish a rational structure for those numbers. Aaron Rodgers is going to throw in the neighborhood of 4,600 yards and 45 TDs this year and no one is going to blink. If he stays healthy and plays another decade it'll probably be the fourth- or fifth-best season of his career. But this is still the best quarterback in football and he's got the Packers at 6-3 with injuries on defense and the offensive line and the 26th-ranked rushing offense in the NFL.

2. Peyton Manning

He leads the NFL in passer rating, yards per attempt, and completion percentage (69.5, which would be sixth in history). Manning obviously has changed the culture in Denver, obviously is still one of the three or four best quarterbacks in the league (and still the best in his family) and obviously is the first, second and 156th reason the Broncos have a live shot to get to New Orleans. I wrote and felt the Broncos were making a titanic, franchise-paralyzing mistake by committing $58 million guaranteed for three years to a guy who is 36 years old, had missed the entire previous season and had four surgeries on his neck. The reward, it seemed, wasn't close to the risk. Well, two months in and to this point I couldn't be more wrong. There's a certain symmetry to that, though, as I felt the Colts couldn't have been more wrong when they drafted Manning over Ryan Leaf 14 years ago. It's important to note, however, that I'm the absolute worst evaluator of quarterbacks on the planet -- I would've traded three first-round picks for Shane Falco.

1. Matt Ryan

I think the Falcons will go 14-2, maybe even 15-1 (they'll lose Sunday at New Orleans), and I think Ryan will finish with about 4,500 yards and 35 TD passes and will win the MVP. And that's a swell story (think BC could use him?) and honor for Ryan and it will mean nothing if he can't win a playoff game. This seems to be tipping point time for Ryan -- he's either going to be Tony Romo or he's going to start winning when it matters. I'm not saying he has to win the Super Bowl this season, but the Falcons at the very least have to get to the NFC title game.