Randy Moss’ first NFL position coach, Hubbard “Axe” Alexander, won two national championships at the University of Miami and three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys before the Minnesota Vikings hired him onto Dennis Green’s staff in 1998. Alexander, then nearly 60 years old and a 35-year coaching veteran, was delivering a scouting report on the upcoming opponent when a 21-year-old rookie from Marshall University moved to adjourn the meeting.
“I just remember Randy, he said, ‘Axe, sit your ass down, it don’t matter what coverage they got, it don’t matter who they got, I’m going to go right by them and we’re going to light them up like a tiki torch,’ ” former Vikings quarterback Brad Johnson said. “Randy was not disrespectful, but it was like, hey, the coaches are putting too much thought into this thing. Just throw it up. For a rookie to speak up like that and back it up …”
“When I played Jerry Rice, I was excited — oh, man, I’m playing the GOAT,” Butler said. “Cris Carter, OK, we have to be smart about how we are going to double. Herman Moore, he is going to catch a lot of passes, we gotta get him on the ground because he is so big.”
Moss triggered a more visceral reaction.
“Randy Moss, your heart is on an EKG machine and it explodes,” Butler said. “Your heart is thinking, ‘I’m going to be on SportsCenter, he is going to jump over me and catch it and I just got Mossed.’ ”
The Vikings changed starting quarterbacks every season from 1998-2000 and still led the NFL in points and touchdown passes over that period. They did it with Moss setting receiving records for yards (4,163) and touchdowns (43) over the first three seasons of a career. They did it at the expense of the Packers, who had dominated the division through most of the 1990s.
“Jerry Rice is the GOAT, you can’t even argue that in no barber shop,” Butler said, “but Randy Moss is the most feared player in NFL history, in my opinion.”
“Randy changed how other teams drafted,” Johnson said, “and he changed coverages. Some people, like in Cover 2, they started using safeties as the corner guys because they could press, and then they used the corners at safety because they had more speed to catch up to him.”
Moss dominated so thoroughly as a rookie, especially against the Packers, that Green Bay selected defensive backs in the first, second and third rounds of the 1999 draft. It remains the only time in 86 Green Bay drafts that the Packers took defensive backs in rounds one, two and three. They could have used a few more.
“It’s one of those things that you say to yourself, ‘My God, if I had this to do over again, I’d draft him,’ ” said Ron Wolf, the Packers’ GM from 1991-2000 and a Hall of Famer. “He was just a sensational football player, especially against us. And that is true, we did take three DBs the next year in the draft — one, two and three. We had to find somebody to cover that guy or at least eliminate him, and we could never do that.”
Moss totaled 30 catches for 753 yards and seven touchdowns in his first six games against the Packers. That projects to 80 catches for 2,008 yards and 19 touchdowns over a 16-game season.
“He came to the league with talent that we really haven’t seen since,” former Packers linebacker George Koonce said.
Johnson, a Vikings quarterback from 1994-1998, offered some insights. According to Johnson, a two-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champ with Tampa Bay, Moss told him he would run full speed on deep routes against Darrell Green, Deion Sanders and Dale Carter, but rarely against lesser corners.
“The rest of them, he said, ‘If you will just throw it as far as you can, I’ll go get it,’ ” Johnson said. “That is unique for someone to say that. Usually, they are full tilt all the way. What is really cool about it was, if it was a jump ball, the defender was running at 100 percent at the tail end of the catch, and Randy would be at 80 percent and more under control for the jump ball.”
The Vikings would sometimes call two plays in the huddle: go routes on the outside against single-safety looks, some sort of running play against Cover 2. These were only general guidelines when Moss was on the field.
“One time, Randall (Cunningham) was the quarterback and it’s Cover 2 and he goes to the max protection, double go routes and Brad is on the sideline going, ‘What’s he doing?'” said Norv Turner, who coached Moss with the Oakland Raiders. “And Randy runs right through the Cover 2 coverage, runs by the safety by five yards and Randall throws it out of there and Randy tracks it down and it’s a touchdown and Brad says, ‘That’s not really the way we drew it up, but it looked pretty good.’ ”
Brian Billick, the Vikings’ offensive coordinator when Minnesota broke the league single-season points record while going 15-1 in 1998, once challenged his quarterbacks to overthrow Moss off five-step drop. Johnson said the quarterbacks struggled to do so. Moss ran under just about everything. It’s all part of the Moss legend.
“I was watching tape one day and I said, ‘Wow, this man just ran through Cover 2,’ ” former Packers cornerback Tyrone Williams said. “I watched him split a safety and a corner, and the safety was already 20 yards back. There are a few guys who can run like that, but they always had one or two weaknesses. This guy had none.”
