Gathering Moss

The Boston Globe’s Ron Borges, recently off a suspension for plagiarism, writes about the Randy Moss experience. Who knows if Moss will play hard every down (and practice) in Boston, or if he still has the ability to be a premier WR in the NFL? But check out this nugget from Moss’ time with the Raiders. Should make for an interesting season in Beantown:

“Walsh described a play in a loss to the Cleveland Browns in which a play-action pass was called and Moss was asked to run a square-in on the weak side. The linebacker was sucked up inside by the fake, according to Walsh, and Moss was expected to run the in-route behind him into the open area. As Walsh recalled it, "He runs a 9 [deep go] route.

"Andrew Walter was at quarterback. He makes the play-fake and a huge hole opens up for Randy in the middle of the field but he's running down the sideline. Walter nearly threw his arm out pulling the ball back. When Randy gets to the sidelines, [wide receivers coach] Freddie Biletnikoff says, 'What were you doing?'

"Randy told Fred, 'I didn't feel like running the 6 route on the dirt part of the infield.' That's the Randy I coached. There were some games where out of 28 plays he'd have 13 or 14 busts. Wrong routes, wrong reads. Dogging it. Whatever."”