Come on, guys, read straight!
Silver TELLS US who said it all.
This is what some of us are questioning.
As one former Patriots player told me Tuesday, "He used Randy Moss and competitiveness in the same sentence! Could anything be more laughable? I heard that and I thought, What the f--- are you talking about?"
This is what Willie was quoted as saying
I've seen guys come in from other places and fall right in line, and the guys who didn't, they got rid of immediately," said Browns linebacker Willie McGinest, who, until his release following the 2005 season, was probably the strongest presence in the Patriots' locker room. "You can go all the way back to Terry Glenn, and then look at guys like Duane Starks and Tyrone Poole -- if you weren't with the program, you were gone. Meanwhile, people said Corey Dillon was troubled when they got him, and how many problems did he have there? The one thing he wanted in life was a ring, and he knew he had to do it their way to get it."
This is why, in McGinest's view, the Moss deal was a smart gamble for the organization. "You've got leaders on the field," he said Tuesday from the office of his L.A.-based record company, 55 Entertainment, "and that's the main thing. With Randy, people in there will be able to say to him, 'Listen -- if you want to win, you have to do X, Y and Z.' How many guys has he been around in the past who could say that to him with any authority? These are the types of players he's been losing to all these years and watching win Super Bowls, so he has to listen.
"He lost a little bit of his spunk and love for the game because of all that s--- he was going through in Oakland, but now he's on the dream team. So, if he's still got baggage and still got problems, something really ain't right."
In noway did they mention Willie in this quote.
I'm not mad that they did this," the former Patriots player said. "I'm mad that for all these years, when everyone wrote that their values were different, they ate it up. They're no different than anyone else, and they never were. We had a run, and the rest is just propaganda.
"I bought into all that stuff about the 'Patriot Way,' and then when I went to [a new team], I was blown away by how loudly guys outside of the organization shot it down. They'd say, 'You guys don't do s--- different -- you've just got Tom Brady.' I argued with them at first, but looking back, there was no lower percentage of jackasses there than on any other team. Some of the guys they drafted, even in early rounds, were selfish and unreliable and horrible to have around."
Another Willie Quote
Those are three adjectives, based on Moss's nine-year body of work (and numerous conversations with those who've been around him), that I'd use without hesitation to describe the Pats' new deep threat. Yet when people I respect as much as I do McGinest tell me they think the move was a positive one, I have to at least consider that viewpoint.
"It was odd, them trading for Randy," he conceded. "I only get it because I was there. If I'm looking at it from the outside, no, I don't get it. Since I've been there and I understand how they can convert guys like Randy, I understand it, but I can see how others wouldn't."
I hear you, Willie. And I also believe the high-ranking Patriots official who told me that if Moss makes one false move, "He'll be gone -- period." Cool. Good for them. But, in the end, I can't sign off on the notion that the conversion of Moss will be as seamless as everyone appears to believe it will.
Again unless I am reading this wrong Willie had nothing but positive things to say and Silver did not reckognize the "former player" who trashed the Pats.
