By now, anyone clued into football knows that Randy Moss had decided to retire. Apparently, he wasn’t getting any offers from the teams he was interested in, so he decided to hang up the ol’ cleats.
It’s actually remarkable to think that he’s been playing for 13 years in the NFL. Frankly, it doesn’t seem that long and it certainly seemed like he could have milked his career for another 3 or 4 seasons. He had too much talent.
This list of highlights over at ProFootballTalk is pretty good. I remember a number of them; especially, the Thanksgiving Day game against Dallas during his rookie year. After that, I figured it was only a matter of time before he crushed all of Rice’s records.
For my part, I’d add 3 other memorable moments:
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His first game as a Patriot against the Jets- he’s drawn triple coverage on a deep crossing route. Brady throws the ball to the sideline and there’s only 1 guy on the field who has any chance of catching it, and he does. Result, 40 or so yard touchdown pass in a Pats win. (First highlight, here.)
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While still a Viking, I recall a remarkable over-the-should lateral that his teammate took for a touchdown. Watching it on replay, it was never clear how Moss even knew the player was going to be there. Check it out for yourself.
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In the one Super Bowl he appeared in, the Patriots are down by 3+ and their offense has been stymied all day. Brady and Moss hook up repeatedly on a last ditch type drive, culminating in a Brady-Moss touchdown pass to give the Patriots the lead with only a couple minutes to play. It was his only touchdown of the day, everyone knew it was coming and it still couldn’t be stopped.
Ultimately, Moss played football his way. Not everyone agreed with it, but he held fast to whatever principles he played by. I’ve always liked him and felt sports media was constantly trying to cut him down to size. The problem for the media is that people still wanted to see Moss play- the sports media knew this and Moss knew this and he ultimately didn’t care what was printed about him. He was proof-positive of who truly holds the whip-hand in the sport media-player relationship.
That’s not to say he was perfect. Sure, I sometimes wish he been more in the mold of Rice. But then he likely would not have been the electrifying player he was. I think the simple fact is he was better than everyone else, period. After awhile, he got bored by the game because even at it’s pinnacle there was no one who could stop him. People might say Darrelle Revis managed it, but I don’t buy it. Moss owned him in Moss’ last Pats-Jets game. Revis is in his prime, Moss was well past his own at the time.
I’ve always liked the “If you had to choose a player for your game-of-the-century, who would it be?” question when evaluating greatness in a player. I think Randy Moss is the number 1 answer to that question for a lot of fans. Myself included.