3 games’ worth of targets – one in which Brady was underthrowing everybody, not just Moss – is not a significant sample. (I say ‘3’ games because he was only targetted once in the 4th game).

Otherwise you have to also note the 8 off-target passes by Brady when throwing to Moss.

Last year, Moss’ Completion Rate was a solid 60.7% which was 4th highest for players with at least a 31% deep ball rating (Randy’s was 36.6%). V. Jackson, Breaston and Meachum were the only deep ball threats with better completion rates. And only Jackson was targetted nearly as often by his QB.

And for the record, his 2009 CR% was actually higher than both 2008 (51%) even the epic 2007 (53%). So that’s hardly any sign of decline.

One notable difference is that in both 2007 and 2008 (with two different QBs) his Deep ratings were only 32.8 and 31.6% while in 2009 it was 36.6% and this year it was a whopping 40.9% (albeit this latter is as I said with a small sample of only 22 targets).

Those Deep% numbers are compelling evidence that the Patriots were clearly using Moss differently under O’Brien than under McDaniels.