Talent wise, yes.
Work ethic and overall production, Moss is so far behind Rice that your post IMO is way off.
Results are what counts, not potential.
If Moss has so much more potential, as you claim, and I also agree, then it just make his comparative lack of similar career results all the more of a gap between him and Jerry Rice. Not saying that Moss's body of work isn't impressive. Just that he will never catch Rice. He would have to play until he is about 45.
Jerry Rice and Walter Payton were the two hardest working football players in the offseason. They spent their time running up mountain sides and training endlessly.
If Moss had Rice's work ethic, he just might have his production as well. He wouldn't ever have taken a single play off. I watched him all those years with the Vikings. I watched him pull antics, take plays off, drop balls due to lack of concentration, spend his time making goofy faces at the opposing team's sidelines. All that stuff. I saw it with my own two eyes.
I wanted him to come to the Pats because I knew that he still had the talent, and was capable of maturing. But to compare him to Rice as a football player who is getting the job done on the field to the best of his ability, Moss has only one season which we can really look at as the best of Moss. Rice has an entire career as the best of Rice.
I don't buy into the argument that Moss is better because he has more natural talent. He will be better when his production says so. Right now it is not even close.
Rice's numbers are off the chart. Staggering. Moss will never catch him.
In terms of production, this year he's had has been better than any year Rice ever had. And there are things that career stats don't reveal. It's no surprise whatsoever that Moss has been the only common denominator between the two highest scoring offenses in NFL history.
I agree with you on the issue of work ethic, but I think you have to look at where Moss came into the league versus where Rice came into the league.
Rice came into the league under Bill Walsh and the 49ers, being thrown to by Joe Montana.
Moss came into the league branded as a problem child. He came into
college branded as a problem child. Rather than look at his talent and try to mentor him, most teams looked past him. And I don't believe the Vikings under Dennis Green was the kind of environment he needed to mature in.
Oakland was even worse. If you watch "The Moss Method" you'll see he did put in the hard work and attended the roughest training camps in the off-season. But Oakland didn't know what to do with him and had no way of really tapping his potential. It's like the kids who are too smart for the classes they're in, so they get into trouble out of boredom.
Now, 10 years in, he's been given a shot to work with today's Bill Walsh and Joe Montana. And you can see that now that he's been given that chance, he's exceeded all expectations, been a true team player, found a coach who respects him and can mentor him, and a QB who is good enough to utilize him to his full potential.
It's wrong to characterize Moss as being less than Rice because of career stats or his work ethic when he wasn't in the right environments to excel at either.
If anything, it's the same story as Brady or Belichick. Brady never had the career stats and no one thought Belichick could be a great head coach. He was run out of Cleveland and then bailed on the Jets. Maybe that's the real story of the 2001-2007 Patriots. A team of misfits who were never given the chance to show their greatness coming together to surpass all metrics of greatness.
In short, don't be too fast to judge Moss for his past lest you be willing to hold Belichick's or Brady's against them as well. In time, he will put all doubt to rest about who the greatest WR ever is.
