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ShareThisFriday discussion question: what does 2007 say about Randy Moss?
In 2001, Randy Moss played his fourth NFL season, and he set career lows in yardage and touchdowns. It was during that season that he famously proclaimed that he plays when he wants to play (and presumably only when he wants to play).
In summer of 2002, I wrote this about him:
OK, I'll lay my irrational biases out on the table right up front: I like Randy Moss. I have a knee-jerk reaction to like guys like Moss because I think people dislike them for the wrong reasons.
None of us has any idea what kind of person Randy Moss is. The prevailing opinion on Moss is that he's a great natural talent, but his lack of work ethic is preventing him from reaching his full potential. Putting aside for a moment the fact that willingness to work hard and emotional maturity are, to a large extent, natural abilities too, the truth of the matter is that none of us has any idea at all how hard Randy works or has worked to get where he is.
And now, about this "I'll play when I want to play" business....
I think it's quite possible that Randy wasn't being completely truthful with those comments, and that his motivation for making them was embarrassment. He was off to the worst start of his career. For the first time in his life, he was showing signs of being a run-of-the-mill receiver. Maybe Moss thinks that being beaten physically is a bigger sin than being beaten mentally. Maybe he was giving the same effort he had always given and was still not getting the job done. So he had to make a choice on what to tell the world:
- that he just flat gets beat sometimes; or
- that he only gets beat when he decides to get beat.
Most people, I think, see the first option as being the more honorable one, but maybe Randy didn't. Not only did he want to convince the world that he alone is in control of his destiny, he wanted to convince himself that he was still Superman.
Am I a Randy Moss apologist? Yes. Do I know anything at all about what makes Randy tick? No. Do I have any psychological expertise to lend credence to what I've said above? No. But that doesn't stop anyone else from spewing their opinions on Randy Moss, so why should it stop me?
Chase dredged this article up after week four, implying that the early returns from 2007 put the final nail in the coffin of the theory I outlined above.
Do you agree? Can we conclude with a reasonable degree of certainty that Moss was dogging it for two years in Oakland? Or is it possible that a combination of health, system, supporting cast, and luck could account for the difference between this:
| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD | | 2005 oak | 16 | 0 0 0.0 0 | 60 1005 16.8 8 | | 2006 oak | 13 | 0 0 0.0 0 | 42 553 13.2 3 |
and this:
| Year TM | G | Att Yards Y/A TD | Rec Yards Y/R TD | | 2007 nwe | 7 | 0 0 0.0 0 | 44 732 16.6 10 |
This entry was posted on Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 4:33 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
So first off, I'd like to point to this post, which totally coincidentally(ha-ha) happens to be from this very blog and written by Chase.
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/wordpress/?p=370
Which I think offers a pretty convincing argument that the 2005 season is not really as much of an aberration from Moss' career as you might think.
This leaves us with the 2006 season, when Moss was playing on a 2-14 team with such luminaries as Aaron Brooks and Andrew Walter throwing him the ball and the other major offensive "threats" consisting of Ronald Curry, Lamont Jordan(for 10 games) and Huggy Bear's son. And Moss was hurt for some of the year.
I think it's a bit much to blame his poor statistics on dogging it for the 2 years he was in Oakland. Yeah, he dogs it on some routes(I distinctly remember a show with Jaws, NFL matchup probably, where he showed tape of Moss obviously jogging routes), but he obviously does work very hard at what he does. I see Moss as a bit similar to Manny Ramirez - sure, he says dumb things some times, and sometimes it looks like he's not totally into the game, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't work hard and take the game he plays very seriously.
While his situation is better now to succeed, I definately think he was dogging it too. He is a P.O.S. who only behaves when he gets what he wants. He is the prototypical "I am taking my ball and going home" POS that leaves everyone else with no ball to play with. I doubt thinks will go wrong in NE, but if they were, he'd be a major problem. That being said, I was discussing this very think with our good mutual buddy Sto early, and we were comparing Randy to TO. Our conclusion was TO has Bipolar Disorder and absolutely nuts, while Randy is a lazy, pot smoking bastard, who can only be bothered when he wants to be bothered. GLS.
I'll preface this by stating that I like Moss a lot. Moss is probably the most physically gifted receiver the NFL has seen but he lacks that drive that guys like Rice, Harrison, and heck, even TO has to keep in top form. I laughed when at Patriots camp Moss went from being first in all the wind sprints to being last one week later. He is an amazing receiver who is making Brady that much better because he comes down with about everything thrown at him. He's a HOF player and my vote for MVP this season so far. He alone has changed that offense. Forget Stallworth and Welker, he is the straw that stirs the drink.
I think Monkeytime is right on. I always considered TO to be the experiment of what it would be like to throw a sorority girl into the NFL. Never satisifed no matter how good the situation, stabs friends in the back, creates drama and conflict for no reason, obsessed with his appearance, self centered, wears diamond earrings, accuses guys that don't treat him the best or like him of being gay. Moss is a stoner friend that could have a 4.0 GPA but he only pulls it together when he wants to.
60 catches, 1005 yards, 8 TDs on a crappy team is dogging it?
Compare what you said about Brady's season a couple weeks ago to this. By any objective standard, their degrees of "improvement" are similar.
Cant deny it - the Massachusetts Miracle is back.
Was that touchdown catch where the ball "stuck" to his hip last week skill or luck?
As a Vikings fan, I've always liked Moss.
Now that you know my personal bias, I always do what I can to reduce the effect of that famous quote that makes for a terrific sound bite but is utterly taken out of context. Here's how the actual conversation went (paraphrased, I'm sure, but you get the idea):
Reporter: Do you need Cris Carter to motivate you?
Moss: I don't need anyone to motivate me. I play when I want to play.
Kinda changes your entire perspective, doesn't it?
Tom Brady has a history of improving the numbers put up by wide receivers. Consider that Troy Brown, Deion Branch, David Givens, David Patten, and Reche Caldwell have all played for other QBs during their careers, yet have all recorded their best years (statsically) when playing with Brady. Why should Moss be any different?
Well, Andrew, I think you could also argue that all QB's put the best numbers of their career with Moss on the team. Why should Brady be any different. Just being devil's advocate on this one...
Oakland was a toxic situation and an incompetent situation. A lot of other players would get a break for putting up career low numbers in such a situation. Moss deserves that break too.
I can't stand athletes like Moss, but...
First off, let's all agree to throw out TDs as a measure of individual performance.
If we stipulate that his decline in 2006 was due to injury, we're left with 16.8 yds/rec in 2005 vs. 16.6 yds/rec in 2007. I realize there is a whole lot more to WR performance than yds/rec, but it is one of the few things a WR can help control individually. (He can't throw the ball to himself or protect the QB.)
2005's 16.8 yds/rec was better than his four previous years in MIN and above his career average of 15.9 yds/rec.
Like I said, there's more to a WR than yds per reception. But it's hard to say he was dogging it in OAK.
He was dogging it in OAK. Hmmm, that came out remarkably easy.
Hmm.
I don't think Moss-with-the-Raiders is necessarily a fair criticism, even assuming he was dogging it. He was on a team that was, other than himself, fully incompetent and there were certainly players more disgruntled than he on that team. They had traded an admittedly bad coach for arguably the worst coach in the history of the NFL. He at least played while healthy, while others on his team refused to take the field. He was unhappy and got traded.
Further, compare Moss's career to Rice, Harrison, and TO.
Rice played for 20 years. The first 14 season he played were winning seasons with a future Hall of Fame QB. In these 14 years, he experienced 0 3+ game losing streaks. Then he played for 2 losing teams, and got traded to another team which had 3 winning season before coming apart at the seams and he moved on again for his last year. We really don't know what Rice would have done if he'd been on a team as bad as the 2006 Raiders: He's never been on one, and left every team he played for if they had 2 losing season.
Harrison has played for the Colts for his entire career of 12 years, 10 of which with a future first ballot hall of famer. They had some bad seasons early in his career, but he was hardly in a position to bitch about it at that point in his career. His only other losing season was 2001, when James was injured and things were expected to improve (and did) the next year.
That brings us to TO. He started his career in possibly the best situation ever for a young WR to get: Playing with Rice and Young. He left SF in a way that the team seriously still hasn't recovered from. He played 1 season in Philly before coming unglued. Now he's in Dallas. So far, thing are working. The difference between TO and the rest of these guys is he seems to get discontented in good situations. He flipped out after his team made the frickin' Superbowl. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to when TO flips out. Interestingly, TO has played in all 16 games in less than half of his season in the NFL.
So, I'd have to say that TO is a nutjob, and what other super-elite receivers would have done in Moss's place is difficult to say. They have never been in nearly as bad of situations as the ones Moss has. I could easily see Rice having done so.
Not sure if you've noticed the error already, probably have, if so disregard this- but Chris Chambers profile is coming up double the receiving yards, etc. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/ChamCh00.htm
By the way, has any receiver ever had this type of reception/td ratio that Moss has?
720 rec / 111 td = 6.49 rec per td
I went ahead and looked at the WR yard stick of Jerry Rice:
1549 rec / 197 td = 7.86 rec per td
And then others-
Owens: 7.02
Largent: 8.19
Clayton: 6.93
Had to go way back to the 40's to find someone at last-
Hutson: 4.92
Wow.
"Tom Brady has a history of improving the numbers put up by wide receivers.
...
Why should Moss be any different?"
I'd say this year, it is Moss that is improving the numbers of Brady. Moss's numbers are typical of him (he had about the same statistics in 2004). And this is a legendary WR we're talking, NOT like any other receiver Brady has ever 'helped'.
Re #14:
Mike Vrabel 11 Rec/ 11 TD's = 1 Rec per TD
Or Paul Warfield -
427 85 5.02
Frank Ryan was the first QB who really got the idea of passing for TDs instead of pounding it in. He may still have the lowest passes to TDs ratio, although between Jim Brown, injuries, & getting a PHD in math he didn't have all that many passes.
I don't think anyone who watched that team can deny that Moss dogged it at least some of the time in Oakland. Then again, he dogged it some of the time in Minnesota too. The question is, did he dog it more of the time in Oakland than in Minny, and if so, to what extent was that (as opposed to injuries, horrible situation etc.) responsible for his statistical decline? My feeling is that it was a marginal factor in 2005, but an important one in 2006. I would also like to throw one more possible explanation out there: playing home games on grass (no, not like that), rather than an artificial surface.
Finally, in the general defense of Moss category, I would like to suggest that people think he's lazier than he is because of the way he runs. His gait appears loping and lackadaisical, even when he's actually sprinting. For a great example, check out the long touchdown play against the Jets earlier this season. Three defensive backs were trailing in Moss's wake when he caught the ball on a deep post, desperately sprinting to catch up with him. Moss looked like he was out for a morning jog, but he was actually pulling away from them.