FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- He began the night in everyone's face, the New England Patriots' oldest and greatest player bouncing around the field and the locker room shouting at anyone who would listen and a few who didn't know what to think.

"Monday Night Football!" Tom Brady bellowed at his teammates in the moments before the game. "Playing the Ravens! What's better than that?!?!?"

"He was very excited, I know that," Patriots tight end and amused relative newcomer Martellus Bennett said after it was over. Any midgame glimpse of Brady on the sideline, barking animatedly at teammates after third-down plays gone wrong, was all you needed to know about how fired up he was for this one. If you needed it, a look at the postgame stat sheet would drive home the point.

It shows three touchdowns and 406 yards on 38 throws (25 completions) against the NFL's best defense. A 30-23 victory over a traditional rival and potential playoff opponent. A 79-yard "enough-already" touchdown strike to Chris Hogan in the fourth quarter, after too many turnovers and too many missed chances had made the game closer than it ever should have been.

Someone asked Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh what happened, how his defense got so thoroughly roasted, and he couldn't have been more matter-of-fact.

"I think you just chalk it up to Tom Brady does a great job and obviously had a great night throwing the ball," Harbaugh said.

Shrug.

Sometimes, it's just that Brady is too darn good, and there's nothing you can do. With the playoffs just a couple of weeks away, Monday night was a reminder that the biggest difference-maker in the field is still the guy flinging perfect passes at Patriot Place.

Tom Brady threw for 406 yards and three touchdowns in the win over the Ravens. Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

"You can't make a mistake against this guy," Ravens linebacker Terrell Suggs said. "He'll make you pay for it, and he made us pay big."

Harbaugh has a pretty good team. The 7-6 Ravens seem good enough to make the playoffs, and if they do they may be good enough to win a game or two. This is an apt description of pretty much any AFC contender right now. It's a flawed, muddied field, and much of Monday night's game made that clear.

The Patriots looked ready to run away with the game until Brady threw a terrible second-quarter interception in the red zone and their punt-return and kick-return units handed the Ravens 14 points in the third. At that point, the game started to look like a coin flip that would clarify little about what's to come in January.

Then, Brady split the hashmarks with a laser, Hogan caught the ball in stride and delivered it to the end zone, and all of a sudden everything looked clear again. The AFC playoff field may be a collection of imperfect, at-times-unimpressive squads. But only one of them has the quarterback who has won more games than any other in NFL history, and come January that might just be what makes the difference.

"I still think it's amazing to be on the same field as him," Hogan said.

LeGarrette Blount now has 14 touchdowns on the season for the 11-2 Patriots. AP Photo/Charles Krupa

Legitimate greatness in a time of parity is a thing to sit up and notice. Brady is playing without his best offensive weapon -- injured tight end Rob Gronkowski. The Ravens came in allowing a completion percentage of 35.2 on deep passes (balls thrown at least 15 yards downfield), and Brady completed 8-of-10 of those throws for two touchdowns. Overall, he's at 22 touchdowns and two interceptions in the nine games he has played since his four-game suspension ended. There's no one on the league playing his position any better, and as fired up as he was before the game, he was just as satisfied when it was over.

"Yeah, it was a big game for us," Brady said. "Playing at home in December on Monday night against a great defense, it was important for us to come out and play well."

They played well in some aspects of the game, poorly in others and escaped in spite of three turnovers. And as the time ticked down at the end of the fourth quarter, the crowd at Gillette Stadium began chanting the biggest reason why.

"Brady! Brady! Brady!" they cried.

The playoffs are less than a month away, and after all of the tumult this season has brought, it still looks as if the road through the AFC cuts through Foxborough and the biggest factor in deciding the biggest games is still the guy wearing No. 12 and screaming at his teammates to try to get them as fired up as he is.