Sports Grid – Randy Moss just held a live video chat session on USTREAM, in which he said he’s coming back to the NFL next season. Yep. “Hopefully I can get on a team,” the seven-time Pro Bowler said, “Hopefully I can finish this thing the way I wanted to.” On August 1, 2011, Moss retired from football. At the time, he seemed conflicted about it, and during the USTREAM chat, he mentioned that he needed to straighten some things out in his life. Welp, it sounds like those things have been straightened (hooray therapy!), because Randy Moss is coming back to football.

I know this story is a day or so old.  And it’s not like I didn’t see it before. It’s just that when it comes to blogging Patriots stories, I’m still not fully recovered.  I’m more like Maverick getting back into the cockpit after Goose died.  No knock on Merlin, but I’m still a little shellshocked and struggling to get my bearings.  But my country needs me so here goes.

Should the Patriots take a flyer on Randy Moss?  Obviously they’re the team he’s thinking about when he says he’s coming back.  These were the best years of his life.  He was loved here.  Respected.  A part of something.  Not to mention the year before last the Pats put  him on waivers and the only team to put a claim on him was Tennessee.  And within two months he couldn’t get off their sidelines.  Last year, NO team was interested in him.  So that leaves only the Patriots.

In Moss’ favor, he was one of the rare receivers to be able to grasp this offense.  My theory on the Pats side-read-heavy scheme is that there’s zero learning curve.  You either get it or you don’t.  Welker, Hernandez and Gronk picked it up right away.  Deion Branch was away for years and got back into it like he’d never left.  But solid, established NFL wideouts like Doug Gabriel and Joey Galloway never got it and never would have.  And they’ve had no success plugging draft picks into it.  Bethel Johnson never made it.  Taylor Price had his whole rookie season to learn it and was gone a month into his sophomore year.  Chad Ochocinco Johnson may yet prove me wrong, but no one has ever struggled in this system and then suddenly flip a switch and grasped it.  But  Moss? The Patriots offense came as naturally to him as humping your leg is to a dog.  Plus he’s such a freakish athlete if anyone could step back into it and produce it would be him.

But on the other hand, it just doesn’t feel right.  I mean, who’s ever been away from the game for a year, comes back and has it work out?  It’s like going back to your parents house after you moved out.  It’s always just awkward and weird.  And let’s not forget Moss shot his way out of town.  The team didn’t take the cheese and make a big deal out of it, but coming off a big win Moss was focused entirely on himself and next year’s contract and forced a trade.  And once they brought Branch back to replace him, they were flat out a better, more cohesive team.  As much fun as Moss was to have around, I think it’s best left to memories.  We’ll always have Paris.  But as much as they could use an-outside-the-numbers X-receiver deep threat, I’d rather see Brandon Lloyd, who said he’ll follow Josh McDaniels anywhere than move Randy back into his old room.  @JerryThornton1




On the other hand, he might move a lot of old Stool t-shirt inventory,  so whatever they decide to do…