After Randy Moss was traded to New England in 2007, Tom Walsh, his OC in Oakland, made some comments that turned out to be horribly wrong.
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Moss had a famously bad run in Oakland in 2005-6. The Minnesota Vikings had just traded him away and he was struggling to find his form.
He too, was unhappy with his team and their lack of winning. “Maybe because I’m unhappy and I’m not too much excited about what’s going on, so, my concentration and focus level tend to go down sometimes when I’m in a bad mood,” he said at the end of the season.
“I might want to look forward to moving somewhere else next year to have another start and really feel good about going out here and playing football”. And this is exactly what happened.
The Raiders traded Moss to New England where he would link up with Tom Brady. After the trade, Tom Walsh, who was his offensive coordinator in Oakland, had a lot of negative things to say about the wideout.
Also read: Antonio Brown Signs With Tampa Bay
Walsh’s Comments on Randy Moss
Recently, a Reddit user uncovered an interview that Walsh did with the Boston Globe in 2007. At the time, the story was covered by ESPN, speculating how Moss would fare with the Patriots.
“Randy Moss is a player whose skills are diminishing, and he’s in denial of those eroding skills,” Walsh said. “Randy was a great receiver, but he lacked the work ethic and the desire to cultivate any skills that would compensate for what he was losing physically later in his career.”
“He told me last year, ‘I’m too old to practice on Wednesday and Thursday, but I’m not too old to play on Sunday.’ Did they start a senior league?”
Walsh continued, “When he’s right, he still makes an impact. He looked like a world-beater in a preseason game against the Lions. I never thought he was difficult to coach, but we expected him to be a complete receiver and he wasn’t.”
“His whole game in Minnesota was outside the numbers. For him to run shallow crosses and in-routes was new for him. Initially, he showed all the interest but later on … I don’t know.”
“Randy Moss has great football IQ. He’s tremendously gifted. I think he can still play, but his legs will determine how much work he can handle.”
“We used to take him out of Friday practices because the quarterbacks wanted the receivers running near game tempo and when Randy was on the field, the whole practice slowed down so much we started giving him the day off. Once he got discouraged, he just faded.”
Moss Experiences Success in NE, But Retires Without SB Ring
Of course, Walsh’s take on the ‘diminishing skills’ would be proven wrong. The next season, Moss had arguably the best season of his career, hauling in 98 passes for 1,493 yards and 23 TDs.
His 23 receiving touchdowns in a single season is an NFL record that stand till date. Moreover, he would experience a great deal of team success.
The Patriots were undefeated the entire regular season, going 16-0, and made it to the Super Bowl. However, they lost to the Giants after David Tyree’s famous “Helmet Catch”.
Arguably, this was the closest he would ever come to winning the big game. In his last season in the NFL with the 49ers, although he was a bench player, Moss made it to the SB but once again lost
After that game, Moss retired as perhaps the greatest player to never win a ring.
