Bad Randy is Back

My alternative title for this piece was going to be San Diego Chargers 30 - NE Patsies 10. What I want to focus on is that Bad Randy, he of the Oakland Raiders years, seems to be back so soon after Good Randy set the single-season receiving TD record (23!) with Tom Brady at the helm of the NE offense in 2007.

Now, obviously, Matt Cassel is no Brady. That was proven last night against the Chargers, even though Cassel had a not great, but not altogether terrible stat line: 22 of 38, 57.9%, 203 Yds, 5.3 YPA, 0 TD, 1 INT, 4 sacks, plus 7 rushes for 29 Yds and a respectable 4.1 YPC average. Keep in mind that much of Cassel's passing yardage came in the waning minutes, when the game was long decided. He certainly was out of sync with Moss on several long balls, and there were several passes dropped by SD defenders that could have been INTs.

Given that Cassel had some success when he decided to pull the ball down and run, he could be forgiven for trying to score with his legs on 4th and 1 with 9:13 to go in the 3rd quarter and NE down only 17-3 at that point. On that play, he missed a huge target in Ben Watson, who was open, even though SD was not exactly putting pressure on the pocket. The real problem was that missing the chance to cut the lead to 17-10 meant the game was, for all intents and purposes, over at that point.

At least, for Randy Moss, the game was over. From that point onward, the Bad Randy of 2005-6 was on the field. Moss just isn't the same player when he isn't motivated to win. During his first year in the NFL, Moss used as motivation the fact that 17 teams passed on him for perceived character issues to light up the league for 69 receptions, 1,313 Yds, and 17 TDs. That was a monster year for any WR, much less a rookie out of Marshall.

Moss had numerous good years while at Minnesota, and was a productive receiver until landing with the Oakland Raiders by way of a trade prior to the 2005 season. Before then, Moss had reliably put up over 1,000 Yds receiving and usually double-digit TDs per season, even with several off-the-field incidents as distractions. At Oakland, Moss still reached the 1,000 Yd plateau his first season with the team, but then fell off a cliff in 2006, catching only 42 balls for 553 Yds and 3 TDs in 13 games.

When Oakland first traded Moss to New England (for what? a fourth-round pick, was it?), everyone wondered just which Moss the Patriots were going to get. Would he once again be the extremely productive WR featured for so many years at Minnesota? Or would be disappear from prominence, especially in an offense like New England's, which likes to distribute the ball to multiple receivers? Everyone knows the answer to that question was Good Randy! He loved the team chemistry, loved not having to carry the offense by himself, and loved setting passing and receiving single-season records with a QB like Brady.

Sadly (and I say this because I have Moss on my fantasy team), Moss appears to be packing it in this season, even as NE sits 3-2, second in the AFC East despite being outscored by 20 points. It's still very early in the season, but the Moss on the field last night appeared to not try all that hard to catch balls thrown his way. Moss and Cassel were definitely out of sync on one long pass play into the end zone; Moss thought Cassel would throw for the middle of the field, but the pass came to the outside. Other times, it looked as though Moss was not actively trying to make the amazing catches he would normally make, including catches over a defender in his face. In the picture at left, despite the fact it looks like Moss is making a catch, the pass fell incomplete.

The most telling moment for me, though, was that Moss had his gloves off and looped through his facemask before the game officially ended. True, having Belichick call timeout with 2 seconds left, just so they could try to score a meaningless TD to cut the margin of victory, was a little excessive. But they had one more play to run, and Moss was not ready to play.