He is 9-4 as a starter. The New York Jets have won exactly one game without him in the lineup. He helped turn around the team from a 1-4 punch line into the hottest machine running.

So what exactly does Chad Pennington have to do to get coach Herman Edwards to name him team MVP?

	Edwards and Pennington paid their dues before getting a shot.

Who knows, but maybe if Pennington could catch 89 passes, for around 1,264 yards and 5 touchdowns -- the exact numbers of Laveranues Coles, it would sure help.

Edwards said recently Coles was the Jets' most valuable player, as far as he was concerned. And here's what was shocking: it shocked no one.

Coles and Pennington, who bonded over countless practice-squad pitch-and-catches in 2000, have emerged together. Since Pennington took over in Week 4, Coles has caught 83 passes for 1,218 yards and scored all of his touchdowns. Talk to Pennington or Coles about how they've developed as battery mates, and one play will come up -- a pass against Denver, not the one that turned out to be the game-winning touchdown, but one that was incomplete. On a simple route, Coles kept running and Pennington thought he would stop and come back to the ball.

Coles says it was the first time they haven't been on the same page all year.

"The sky's the limit for him because he's a hard-working guy," Edwards says. "It's amazing how far he's come. The thing on him was he didn't play to his 40 speed. He proved a couple of people wrong. If I'm voting right now for the M.V.P. of the Jets, it's Laveranues Coles. Hands down, because he's been more consistent. Every week, he keeps making plays."

Says Coles, "I never thought I would be in the situation where I would be the leading receiver on the Jets."

Both guys did it together, but from opposite angles. Both were drafted in the 2000 draft; Pennington the glossy first-rounder, Coles the third-rounder in exile after his Dillardsgate incident. Getting busted and suspended with Peter Warrick (and not being able to return to the field, unlike Warrick) was something he was eager to forget, and the Jets' coach at the time, Al Groh, wouldn't let him. Coles told the New York Post that he almost walked away from football: "One comment [Groh] made to me was, 'Yeah Laveranues, I thought you were gonna be my wide receiver. Yeah, you're gonna be at Dillard's, except this time you're gonna be working there.' … I just felt like everybody and everyone was against me."

Pennington helped keep him around, and the bond they were forging on the scout team was helping. Coles marveled at how Vinny Testaverde and Wayne Chrebet used to draw up plays in the dirt, and he and Pennington were developing a sister-version down the depth chart. The two would walk from practice together talking coverages and reads. Did you see this? Yeah, did you see that? Something was starting. Says Coles, "We came in together and we've set high goals. When we came in, we wanted to be a strong duo."

	Coles has done more than enough to silence his critics.

Coles started to emerge last year, catching 59 balls for 868 yards and 7 touchdowns. But this year started all wrong. Entering Week 4 in Jacksonville, Coles had 6 catches for 46 yards. Under Testaverde, only 34.5% of the Jets completions were to wide receivers. Once Pennington took over in the Jaguars game and started the rest of the season, that number jumped. The Jets finished the year with 54.4% of their completions to receievers. Pennington's accuracy has helped Coles' reputation veer from a pure-deep threat into a physical, tough, dangerous weapon in the short game. The QB's ability to throw a tight spiral and lead his receivers on crossing routes makes for an easy catch, and Coles has used it to show off his speed, which usually falls in the 4.3 range. And then when he goes deep, DBs aren't ready -- against Denver in Week 14, he ran a fly route on Broncos corner Jimmy Spencer, adjusted on the run to an underthrown ball, made a diving catch, and rolled into the end zone in time to score the game-winning touchdown. Says Edwards, "He's physical … and he's fast. That's a potent weapon. Now he's a good runner after the catch because he has some running back ability."

Where Pennington and Coles used to trade scout-team tips, now they're trading compliments. Ask Pennington about his sudden success, and within a few words of his answer Coles' name comes up. And Coles on his QB? "He calls himself a manager; I call him a general," he told the New York Times. "He knows what he wants done out there and he tells you how he wants things to be. Once your teammates see you get rattled, they'll get rattled. He knows he can't be shaking."

He hasn't. And neither has the team's MVP.

Seth Wickersham covers the NFL for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at seth.wickersham@espn3.com