The Patriot Act

Does Moss fit the Bill?

By Brent | May 4th, 2007

No matter what people have read or said over the last few days of the Patriots utilizing a 4th round draft pick to obtain WR Randy Moss, by now most people have had a chance to digest the info and 4 out of 5 dentists agree: It was a smart move Mr. Belichick, Mr. Pioli and Mr. Kraft. Thank you.

The Issues
By now we all have heard the arguments that Moss takes, plays off, has had issues with the law and quit on his teams in Minnesota and Oakland.

However, the fact remains Moss has never had any issues with any player on any of his teams (exception may be Culpepper) and
no teammate has criticized Moss about being a bad influence in the lockerroom (although a few did complian about him leaving the field early during a playoff loss w the Vikings).

Moss left Minnesota because Culpepper was pretty much finished as a QB. The winning attitude turned into something completely different - oddly enough after Moss left the Vikings the ‘Love Boat’ incident occurred. Moss is not known to display this type of behavior, so even if he remained in Minnesota he probably would not have been there.

So Moss moved from a team on the decline only to becoming stuck in the worst organization in the history of football - the Oakland Raiders. Once a team carrying the weight of the NFL (and John Madden) on its shoulders into glory, sadly it no longer resembles the once proud tradition we all remember.

After acquiring Moss, the Oakland Raiders continued to stumble and could not climb out of its hole in the AFC. The front office had a hard time with pressure from Davis and a few players including Moss because their team as whole was not well prepared or coached (the Offensive Coordinator coming out of retirement from his running a Bed n Breakfast…) and had no plan in place to make it better. The blame can be put squarely on owner Al Davis, an older version of Jerry Jones, as he continues to control every aspect of the team. However, he does not take responsibility for losing.

The Change
When Davis brought in youngster Lane Kiffin as new head coach, Moss was not as receptive to another (MF!) change in the Oakland organization when clearly a new coach would not help the team win. They needed the attitude to win. Moss had attitude, but it was not to remain with the Raiders.

The world knew Oakland was shopping Moss and the biggest interest had been from New England and then Green Bay. Green Bay had been seen as the front runner until this past draft weekend. With the first pick of the draft, Kiffin chose QB JaMarcus Russell and continued to have a pretty decent draft on Day 1.

Day 2 saw the Raiders making news before any picks were made as it was announced Raiders would receive a 4th round pickand Moss was in New England taking a physical and the Patriots agreed if all went well the Raiders would receive the 110th pick. Hopefully the recent changes in coaching, player trades and draft will bring the Raiders better luck in 2007, but now the world knows Moss is a new England Patriot.

Moss wants to win!
Moss wants to win - so much so he is willing to take a huge pay-cut from $21 million guaranteed over to years down to $2.5 million guaranteed, $500k in roster bonus and an additional $1.5 million w incentives. That shows how badly Moss wanted to be part of a winning team move to the best organization in professional football today - the New England Patriots. (Meion Branch take note).

Chris Carter has stated this is a great move for both Moss and New England. In comparison both Rodney Harrison and Corey Dillon, (other teams complain Vrabel and Colvin have bad attitudes) are examples of players that had something to prove to themselves, their new teammates, the league and fans! You may hate them, until that is - they are on your team and helping to win another Super Bowl!

Will Moss single-handedly get the Pats to the SB? Heck - no just like TO did not deliver a Super Bowl for the Eagles. But Moss will allow the best QB in the NFL - Tom Brady have a ‘Freak’-in fun season throwing the ball long and deep to Moss or Stallworth. These two guys alone add so much to help stretch the field and clear the box giving Maroney running room, or dink n dunk to Welker, Faulk and Brown. Even big Ben Watson should have enough time to hold on to the ball for a change.

Does Moss fit the Bill?
According to ESPN’s Len Pasquarelli, Belichick is the ultimate coach to tame the ‘Freak’. But is it really Bill Belichick and Scott Pioli? The locker room is full of veterans that live by the Patriots rulebook. Even Donte’ Stallworth heard only good things from Meion Branch and decided New England was the place to go.

I think overall it is about winning in a place that has a coach the builds the mindset on how to win and using all the tools available to achieve that goal and players who bring the attitude on the field and leave it all on the field. The Patriots may have lost in the post season, but none of the players gave up - no matter how hurt, cramped or tired they were.

Whether you believe the hype of New England or not - and there are more then a few NFL fans that absolutely hate the Patriots and their winning ways. But interestingly there are more then a few players that want to get into the Patriot Act.

Randy Moss - Welcome to Patriot Nation!

IN BILL WE TRUST!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at 2:00 pm and is filed under Patriots Organization, Patriots Roster. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.