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Randy has been my all-time fav player since college & there's not a close second for me. Dude was a legend. LeBron James type hype coming out of high school but obviously no social media.
People forget just how dominate he was. And in terms of smarts he was easily one of the smartest, most physical WR I've seen.
One thing people have to remember is Randy was seeing coverages directly designed to stop him long before the pros. If he was singled or even double his teams were checking out of plays & going to him. He had to understand nuances of the game early on to recognize audibles, see the disguise & decipher the best way to attack it. Even with a 4.25 you have to understand leverage, spacing & he was unbelievable at shifting gears/speed to mess with DBs. Just a nightmare to defend bc he was so smart & there wasn't anything he hasn't seen.
In fact coaches were coming up & putting together defenses just for Randy. Again I'm not sure people remember or followed him back then but Randy changed the game in ways a Rice never did.
Tony Dungy literally came up a new variation of the C2 (Tampa two) just for Moss. Teams weren't using exotic looks like a 3 cloud as staples but teams changed their style/philosophy weekly just for Randy. Doubling, bracketing, two-man & playing these kind of looks weren't the norm. Randy literally changed the game, the way you defend WRs & how opposing teams approached the draft/team building to defend him.
Randy was a nightmare off the line. We didn't get to see it as much bc teams respected his speed so much but he was a master releasing from the line. He murdered guys like Winfield (dynamite CB) routinely in practice. Moss used to practice running routes & exploding off the line wearing heavy chains around his waste. You'll see guys throw them on the bar for benching to add resistance.
Randy was also excellent at being physical w/out looking like it. So good at grabbing, slapping defender's hands. Doesn't matter, DB or OL. You stop someone's hands it's instinct to stop your feet. He was also one of the best ever at not extending his arms to give the refs a reason to throw a flag. Randy never extended his arms, probably bc his were so long he didn't have to. Also very good at using his body & stride lengths when he stacked DBs to create enough distance or room for the catch.
I remember Bill commenting & praising Gronk for not showing his cards before the catch. Defenders are taught to look at the eyes & hands of pass catchers for tells as to when a ball is arriving. Moss was fantastic never showing "big eyes" & always waited until the last minute before he caught the ball. I could go on & on abt Randy. How he changed the game & how great he was.
Think abt how many WRs actually made their QBs better. Whether it was Pennington, Pep, Brady, Randy made his QBs better. Statistical & just understanding the game, different positions.
I've seen seen a better RZ target with Gronk coming in 2nd. All Moss did was catch TDs. He caught 50+TDs (54) in 2 years in college. One year I believe he avg'd around 35 yards for all of his TDs. Almost 30 returning kicks.
Almost 160 playing with less then ideal QBs most of his career. If he had played with a Favre, Warner, Brady for 12-14 years he'd have over, very close to 200 TDs. We'll never see another Moss.
The Randy Moss Legacy: A Player Who Inspired Fear Like No Other
It was the first day of Vikings training camp in 1998, and Robert Smith, the team's veteran running back, was on the phone talking to his agent during lunch. After his breakout season in 1997, you'd think the topic of conversation would be Smith's contract or his health or how the opening workout went. But no. The agent wanted to know what everyone else wanted to know about the Vikings that year.
"Well," Smith recalls him asking, "what do you think of this Moss kid?'"
Smith's answer was simple. "I don't know about him off the field," he told him. "But if he stays healthy, he's going to be a Hall of Famer."
"I saw something Moss did that first day, and I'll never forget it," Smith continues. "It was like a 15-yard dig route. And I remember the speed in which he made the cut—how easily he separated and how quickly he was able to go up and snatch the ball out of the air, never losing stride and getting upfield. It was something I had never seen before athletically.
"I had been in the league five years at that point. I had seen Deion Sanders, and obviously I had played with Cris Carter and been on the same field as Jerry Rice. Just so many great players. And s--t, back in college I was actually in a race at the same time with Carl Lewis. So I had seen a lot of great athletes. … I had never seen anything like that.
"This was the best player, maybe the best athlete I had ever seen in person."
"He was like Mike Tyson," Smith says. "He'd beat you before you even faced him. I've never heard defensive players talk the way they talked about him. I shouldn't say that; there's one other player who was like that: Barry Sanders. It's like they knew they were inadequate to perform the job they were supposed to do against those two. They just couldn't do it. There was no way athletically to get the job done."
People forget just how dominate he was. And in terms of smarts he was easily one of the smartest, most physical WR I've seen.
One thing people have to remember is Randy was seeing coverages directly designed to stop him long before the pros. If he was singled or even double his teams were checking out of plays & going to him. He had to understand nuances of the game early on to recognize audibles, see the disguise & decipher the best way to attack it. Even with a 4.25 you have to understand leverage, spacing & he was unbelievable at shifting gears/speed to mess with DBs. Just a nightmare to defend bc he was so smart & there wasn't anything he hasn't seen.
In fact coaches were coming up & putting together defenses just for Randy. Again I'm not sure people remember or followed him back then but Randy changed the game in ways a Rice never did.
Tony Dungy literally came up a new variation of the C2 (Tampa two) just for Moss. Teams weren't using exotic looks like a 3 cloud as staples but teams changed their style/philosophy weekly just for Randy. Doubling, bracketing, two-man & playing these kind of looks weren't the norm. Randy literally changed the game, the way you defend WRs & how opposing teams approached the draft/team building to defend him.
Randy was a nightmare off the line. We didn't get to see it as much bc teams respected his speed so much but he was a master releasing from the line. He murdered guys like Winfield (dynamite CB) routinely in practice. Moss used to practice running routes & exploding off the line wearing heavy chains around his waste. You'll see guys throw them on the bar for benching to add resistance.
Randy was also excellent at being physical w/out looking like it. So good at grabbing, slapping defender's hands. Doesn't matter, DB or OL. You stop someone's hands it's instinct to stop your feet. He was also one of the best ever at not extending his arms to give the refs a reason to throw a flag. Randy never extended his arms, probably bc his were so long he didn't have to. Also very good at using his body & stride lengths when he stacked DBs to create enough distance or room for the catch.
I remember Bill commenting & praising Gronk for not showing his cards before the catch. Defenders are taught to look at the eyes & hands of pass catchers for tells as to when a ball is arriving. Moss was fantastic never showing "big eyes" & always waited until the last minute before he caught the ball. I could go on & on abt Randy. How he changed the game & how great he was.
Think abt how many WRs actually made their QBs better. Whether it was Pennington, Pep, Brady, Randy made his QBs better. Statistical & just understanding the game, different positions.
I've seen seen a better RZ target with Gronk coming in 2nd. All Moss did was catch TDs. He caught 50+TDs (54) in 2 years in college. One year I believe he avg'd around 35 yards for all of his TDs. Almost 30 returning kicks.
Almost 160 playing with less then ideal QBs most of his career. If he had played with a Favre, Warner, Brady for 12-14 years he'd have over, very close to 200 TDs. We'll never see another Moss.
The Randy Moss Legacy: A Player Who Inspired Fear Like No Other
It was the first day of Vikings training camp in 1998, and Robert Smith, the team's veteran running back, was on the phone talking to his agent during lunch. After his breakout season in 1997, you'd think the topic of conversation would be Smith's contract or his health or how the opening workout went. But no. The agent wanted to know what everyone else wanted to know about the Vikings that year.
"Well," Smith recalls him asking, "what do you think of this Moss kid?'"
Smith's answer was simple. "I don't know about him off the field," he told him. "But if he stays healthy, he's going to be a Hall of Famer."
"I saw something Moss did that first day, and I'll never forget it," Smith continues. "It was like a 15-yard dig route. And I remember the speed in which he made the cut—how easily he separated and how quickly he was able to go up and snatch the ball out of the air, never losing stride and getting upfield. It was something I had never seen before athletically.
"I had been in the league five years at that point. I had seen Deion Sanders, and obviously I had played with Cris Carter and been on the same field as Jerry Rice. Just so many great players. And s--t, back in college I was actually in a race at the same time with Carl Lewis. So I had seen a lot of great athletes. … I had never seen anything like that.
"This was the best player, maybe the best athlete I had ever seen in person."
"He was like Mike Tyson," Smith says. "He'd beat you before you even faced him. I've never heard defensive players talk the way they talked about him. I shouldn't say that; there's one other player who was like that: Barry Sanders. It's like they knew they were inadequate to perform the job they were supposed to do against those two. They just couldn't do it. There was no way athletically to get the job done."
