In mid-dynasty, Jordan abruptly left for his fantasy baseball camp, leaving a sport, a team, and a genius gym teacher at the intersection of shock and despair.

Phil Jackson looked about as lost then as Bill Belichick does now. His Bulls were suddenly scheduled to miss the playoffs, and his abandoned cast of Jordanaires was scheduled to be mocked by a revived procession of 98-pound weaklings fixing to even old scores.

"Superman's dead," an opponent or two would gleefully shout at the Bulls' bench.

But Pippen moved his possessions into Jordan's locker, grabbed his team by the throat and drove the Bulls to 55 victories a season after Jordan led them to 57.

So this is where a former high school basketball star named Randy Moss comes in. He was a Pippen for 19 games last year, and a Pippen for 14 snaps this year. But the moment a Kansas City safety named Bernard Pollard crashed into Brady's left knee in the Patriots' season-opening victory over the Chiefs, Moss underwent a stunning transformation.

He became the Jordan of the Patriots. Imagine that.

A couple of seasons back, while striking a barely interested pose in Oakland, Moss would've been the last player in the league expected to emerge as the leader of the Belichick/Brady Pats. He was a card-carrying pain in the butt, and the only man allowed that role in New England is the head coach himself.

Fate and a fourth-round draft pick brought Moss to the Patriots, a franchise that doesn't suffer fools easily. The receiver understood he couldn't rage against the Belichick system, the Patriot way, if he wanted to rejuvenate his career and restore his good name.

Moss drank the Kool-Aid from Belichick's Gatorade bucket. He showed up on time, studied hard and played like a Hall of Famer. He caught 98 passes, a record 23 for touchdowns, and made a happier man out of the best player in the game.

Brady threw a record 50 touchdown passes last year, No. 50 to Moss. The Patriots went 18-0 before the absurdity of Manning to Tyree and a Super Bowl XLII loss to the Giants left their quest for perfection a historic bust.

Brady didn't need redemption; he just needed another season of football to make him forget. On his 15th snap of that season, a blitzing, stumbling safety tore up his knee. Brady finished 2008 with 50 fewer touchdown passes than he managed in 2007.

"If I could turn back the hands of time," Pollard said, "I would bring him back."

Brady's not coming back, not until 2009. His sudden departure has left New England hoping against hope that Matt Cassel-for-Brady will end up a reasonable facsimile of Brady-for-Drew Bledsoe.

Near the end of Jets-Patriots in September 2001, I was standing on the sideline where Mo Lewis blasted Bledsoe, the tackle clearly more vicious than your garden-variety NFL hit. When the scarecrow-ish backup came trotting in, I turned to a New York Daily News colleague, Gary Myers, and said, "Tom Brady. This guy stinks."

So you understand why I'm a big believer in Matt Cassel, especially after he led the Patriots on a 98-yard scoring drive, highlighted by that 51-yard pass to Moss on third-and-11 from the one. But I'm not a big enough believer in Cassel to expect him to elevate his teammates.

No, Moss has to do the elevating this time.

"I know the show must go on and hopefully Matt Cassel is ready to step in," Moss said. "From a team standpoint, we are ready to embrace him and let him lead us."