Brady almost perfect too

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. -- On a night when the Jacksonville Jaguars seldom touched Tom Brady -- and Brady’s passes almost never touched the ground -- another New England Patriots star reached for a way to describe the NFL’s merciless winning machine.

“We’ve got a hellified offense here,” said Randy Moss, whose team improved to 17-0, matching the final record of the 1972 Miami Dolphins.

In a performance that might be called heavenly, Brady paced the Patriots to a 31-20 victory over the Jaguars in an AFC divisional playoff game, setting an all-time NFL record by completing 92.9% of his passes.

He connected on 26 of 28 -- the only incompletions being a drop and a deflected pass -- with three touchdowns. Percentage-wise, that surpassed the postseason performance of the New York Giants’ Phil Simms, who completed 22 of 25 in a Super Bowl victory over Denver after the 1986 season and the regular-season 21-of-23 performance by Cleveland’s Vinny Testaverde against the Los Angeles Rams in 1993.

Brady shrugged when asked about his pinpoint accuracy.

“Those guys, when they’re open like that, that’s my job to hit them,” he said. “They were open every time. It’s easy when you have the receivers that are open all the time, and an offensive line that never lets anybody touch you. It makes it fun to play.”

Of course, the Patriots have a higher goal: their fourth Lombardi Trophy since 2001. So after the game, they were quicker to rib Brady than revere him.

“Yeah,” Coach Bill Belichick said with a rare chuckle, “it was a little disappointing, the two he missed.”

Meanwhile, Belichick’s team is two victories away from hoisting the hardware. The Patriots will play host next Sunday to either Indianapolis or San Diego in the AFC championship game. The Chargers play at the defending champion Colts today for a chance to get that far.

Said Brady: “All the preparation, all the months of workouts, training camp, 17 weeks of football, bye weeks, over 100 practices, and six hours of meetings a day, and it comes down to this. It’s a great opportunity.”

Memo to whichever team is coming to Gillette Stadium: The Patriots’ passing game didn’t even need Moss -- at least as the intended receiver -- to do the damage it did Saturday night. He was the target of one pass, which he caught to convert a fourth-and-five situation.

Typical of the way he has been this season, Moss was unfazed by his decoy status. In fact, he seemed even more jovial than he has been after incredibly productive games.

“I think they got back to the old way to cover me, and that’s putting two and three guys on me for the whole game,” said Moss, making his first postseason appearance since playing for Minnesota in the 2004 season. “And they were beating me up a little bit in the first half.

“Their focus was to really not let me get inside release. So they did a great job of controlling me, but they did a bad job of controlling the other 10 guys.”

The Jaguars were anything but pushovers. They scored a touchdown on their opening possession -- something no team has done in the postseason against the Patriots since 1998 -- and made up for some defensive breakdowns with a crowd-quieting touchdown drive in the second quarter that covered 95 yards.

It was 14-14 at halftime.

Despite the efficient play of the home team, Jacksonville quarterback David Garrard said, “I knew when the game started -- I could just feel the way our offense was moving -- I felt like we were going to have a good chance of continuing to fight fire with fire and score every time they did.”

The Jaguars, coached by former USC linebacker Jack Del Rio, got outstanding play from two former UCLA stars. Maurice Jones-Drew caught a team-high six passes for 49 yards, and tight end Marcedes Lewis had a team-high 74 yards receiving on four catches.

The Patriots took the lead for good on the opening possession of the third quarter, however, when Brady punctuated a crisp drive with a TiVo-worthy touchdown pass to Wes Welker.

In a bizarre series of motions, Brady took a snap out of the shotgun, faked a handoff to Kevin Faulk, and hid the ball on his hip while jumping in the air as if a phantom snap had sailed over his head. Before the Jaguars could figure out what happened, a six-yard bullet pass was in the hands of Welker.

“I’m looking for an Academy Award on that play,” Brady said.

Well, he’s got an MVP and maybe another Lombardi. Why not throw another trophy on the pile?

sam.farmer@latimes.com