It's Time for Everyone to Take a Pass on Randy Moss

The surprise Monday wasn't that Minnesota and Randy Moss are about to break up up. The shock was that it came so soon.

It usually takes teams a couple of years before they get fed up with Moss. The Vikings had all they could take after just four games, one win, 13 receptions and one bizarro press conference.

It came Sunday after New England beat the Vikings, 28-18, in Foxborough, Mass.

Moss wore a black Red Sox cap, extolled his love for the Patriots and questioned Minnesota's coaching. Coach Brad Childress apparently felt that if Moss loves New England so much, he should just stay there.

Moss reportedly wasn't on Minnesota's plane home. The Vikings will now get roundly ripped for trading a third-round pick for a guy they cut a month later. Fair enough, but they'll also deserve credit for correcting that mistake.

They should have known it wasn't going to end well with Moss. He's a 2-year-old trapped in a Hall-of-Famer's body. He bellyached his way out of Minnesota, then Oakland, then New England. Now the Vikings have cut him before he even had time to run over a local traffic officer, much less squirt water on a referee.

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The question now is who will claim this piece of baggage. I'd like to think nobody, but who are we kidding? When you have talent like Moss, there will always be a team willing to stick its head in the sand and pretend Randy will be different this time.

Minnesota thought so, only to find the 33-year-old is as immature as ever. He announced Sunday that the NFL had fined him $25,000 for not talking to the media last week. Then he said he wasn't going to talk the rest of the season.

He said that if the NFL didn't like it, "I don't care."

Making $6 million a year means you don't have to care. I'd be happy if Moss never said another word, but that's not the issue. Insubordination is.

At this point, no amount of tough love is going to alter Moss' behavior. ... Somewhere along the line, little Randy missed a developmental stage or three.
There are nine weeks left in the season. Do the math and Moss was basically flipping a $250,000 bird at the NFL.

Forget fines, the league should have threatened him with suspensions. It would have been done simply out of principle. At this point, no amount of tough love is going to alter Moss' behavior.

Maybe the doctor short-armed him during delivery, or the other kids didn't throw him the ball enough during recess. Somewhere along the line, little Randy missed a developmental stage or three.

That doesn't make him unique among pro athletes. But most eventually figure out that when they don't get their way, pouting is not the answer.

Of course, most aren't nearly as good as Moss. Having ungodly skills cuts you a lot of slack. It makes teammates bite their tongues when you quit on them. Though as Moss once explained, there's a reason he occasionally lollygags pass routes and doesn't reach for passes: "Maybe because I'm unhappy and I'm not too much excited about what's going on," he said, "so my concentration and focus level tend to go down sometimes when I'm in a bad mood."

See, he just gets in a bad mood. If only his team would give him the love and the passes and -- most importantly -- the money he feels he deserves, everything would be fine.

He's not mature enough to see how his petulance works against him. Bill Belichick undoubtedly burst out laughing Sunday when he heard Moss chirp about the Patriots.

"I can't really say enough this team and this organization," Moss said.

Odd, apparently he couldn't bring himself to even acknowledge Belichick when the coach tried to talk to him on the plane ride home from Miami last month. That was after Moss reportedly got into a halftime argument with Patriots quarterbacks coach Bill O'Brien.

Moss -- and please don't stop if you've read this before -- was upset that he wasn't getting enough passes thrown his way. The back story -- and please don't stop if you've read this before -- was Moss being upset that the Patriots hadn't offered him a new contract.

He was hoping to get one from Minnesota. Oops.

This is the first time his actions have had such immediate consequence. Not that the lesson will take with either Moss or his next team.

The dream scenario would be Dallas. Jerry Jones has spent the past 12 years kicking himself for not drafting Moss. He was too concerned about "character issues" to pull that trigger.

Now his entire team has no character. How much fun would it be to see Moss added to that mix? Jones would probably give him a $15 million signing bonus and the keys to Wade Phillips' courtesy car.



All will be grand until Randy gets into one of his moods. Then he'll probably bend over toward the skybox and pretend to moon Jones, just like he did all those Packers fans in 2005.

So congratulations, Minnesota. You will go down as having made the worst move of the season, then the best move.

I don't know where Moss will end up next. Wherever it is, that team will eventually regret it.

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Video: Randy Moss released after less than a month with Vikings.