A Pats Fan's Letter to Randy Moss
To: Randy Moss
Fr: A Patriots’ fan
Re: Your Patriots’ career
Da: May 2, 2007
First of all, on behalf of Pats fans everywhere, let me say “Welcome.” While some might feel a little ambiguous about your coming to New England, there isn’t a man, woman or child among us who believes your addition to the roster won’t improve the ball club. I can’t help picturing next season, with the Colts (minus their two starting cornerbacks from last year) trying to cover you, Donte Stallworth, Wes Welker, Ben Watson and a healthy Chad Jackson while Tom Brady sits back in the pocket looking over the possibilities like a fat guy at a casino buffet and…well I don’t want to get specific about which body parts get hard at the thought of it. But trust me, they are many and varied.
Having said that, I want to be honest with you. You’re a 30 year old grown man. You’ve accomplished more in your career than most of us can dream of; I think you’ve earned it. The truth is that we don’t understand you, and there’s no way in hell you understand us. That’s not a knock on either of us, it’s just a statement of fact. Since the day you were drafted you’ve been our poster child for intolerable behavior. The guy we held up as an example of the way the Patriots don’t have to operate in order to win. I’ll go a step further and say that a lot of the time, we’ve said if a guy like you played for the Pats, you’d destroy the miraculous, indefinable, locker room chemistry they’ve built and actually cost them championships. That they were better off with a clutch over-achiever like David Patten than your obvious talent. To us, you were the anti-role-model; the pluperfect “Me First” assclown we’ve used as a straw man to make us feel even better about the Patriots’ Way of Doing Things.
None of this is meant to send you a “You-better-straighten-up-and-fly-right-Mister” message. You’ll be getting enough nagging lectures from those morally unflawed, paragons of virtue who write columns for the old media outlets in town. I’m just a fan, and I speak on behalf of a lot of other fans when I say that, for your whole career, we’ve stood amazed at the things you’ve been able to do when someone throws a football in your direction, but we’ve had just as much fun ridiculing you for the childish nonsense you’ve pulled the rest of the time. Every last one of us has used a first round pick to get you on our fantasy roster, then debated whether we’d ever want you on a flesh and blood team. I just think you should know.
But that can all end, starting last Sunday. Right now for you, two roads are diverging in a woods. Your time with the Patriots can either redefine your career and make you a winner forever, or it can be the embarrassing afterthought to your time in the NFL, like Michael Jordan playing for the Washington Wizards or “The Chevy Chase Show.“
If you take the high road, start drinking the Patriots Kool Aid, buying into the program, putting winning above all other things, not caring who gets the catches as long as you’ve got scoreboard at the end of the game, you’ll be a goddamned folk hero around here. You’ll forever be remembered as the guy who lopped $6 million off his salary in order to bring us another championship(s). The guy who shot his way out of Oakland because, like Corey Dillon before you, all you ever wanted was to be on a winner, and you couldn’t squander another day of your career in the dysfunctional mayhem swirling around you.
None of this is to suggest that we’re any box of chocolates ourselves. On the whole, we’re daffy. Believe me, you’ll find that out. Some of the people who’ll be scrutinizing your every move, even after you cut your salary by 2/3 in order to play here, are the same cheap bastards that would harvest their grandmother’s living organs for beer money. And on their 2007 tax returns they’ll list their occupation as “Randy Moss Critic.” My advice to you is to ignore the criticism. Your new head coach works in ignoring critics like some artists work in oils or watercolors. If you, as he likes to say “just do your job,” the coach won’t care what’s said about you, your teammates won’t care, and neither will we.
In spite of what you might have heard, this isn’t a tough town to play in. Being loved here is as simple as giving a good faith effort and acting like being a pro athlete isn’t a worse job than the Fallujah PD Bomb Squad. Simple enthusiasm is usually enough to win us over. Since we’re being honest with one another Randy, let me say that I’ve followed your whole career, watched you get interviewed, heard you mic’d up by NFL Films, and at the risk of being impolite, I think you’re a little nuts. But that’s OK…I’m not knocking it. So are we. So is Manny Ramirez. Manny’s certifiable, and we love him. As much as the press can’t stand the fact, Manny loves playing baseball and we love him for it. He produces, he doesn’t act like he hates us, and so we’re able to overlook his harmless crackpotism. And Manny’s ’do is way more bizarre than yours.
You’ve been criticized a lot, and even the most hard core Randy basher has to concede some of it has been over the top. When you pretended to moon the crowd at Lambeau, Joe Buck acted like you wiped your ass with the Stars & Stripes. But the rest of us knew that you were justified; that Packer fans flash their own butts more often than Will Ferrell, and we took your side.
No one, not even the most iconoclastic NFL wideout ever thinks the critics are justified; it goes against human nature. Trust me, Randy, a lot of us in the crowd at Gillette know what it’s like to have incompetent bosses, worthless co-workers and be surrounded by people who think we’re lazy, disgruntled underachievers. We see ourselves as brilliant but misunderstood, and I think you feel the same way.
But you’ve put yourself in position to change all that by coming to Foxboro. Buy into the program. Listen to your teammates. Don’t worry about the stats sheet, just the W’s. If Reche Caldwell is open in the end zone because Eric Mangini is covering you with the entire population of East Rutherford, you’ll get the credit you deserve. By the same token, if you go six feet in the air to haul down a touchdown pass, all eleven guys on the field made the play happen, from Dan Koppen snapping the ball, to Brady for throwing it, to Troy Brown in the slot, to the guy who picked up the blitz. That’s how we roll up here in New England.
My advice is that you show up, give yourself over to the Patriots’ Way, and let football be fun for you again. I’m 100% convinced you’re gonna love it here, and we’re going love you back for it. You’ve already given me six million reasons to think so.