The Worst Randy Moss Trade Article I've Seen Yet

When we last left Kerry J. Byrne, of SI and Cold, Hard, Football Facts fame, he was complaining that week 7 of the 2009 NFL season was proof that parity in the NFL was dead due to an unfair system that rewarded teams for having competent front offices.

What's KJB up to now? Saying that the Patriots are better off without Randy Moss, but the reason why may surprise you!

And the Cold, Hard Football Facts are these: Wide receivers, even the all-time great wide receivers, are little more than shiny hood ornaments on NFL offenses.

And all-time great QB's are just beaded seat covers. So the big question is, what vehicular knick-knack is an all-time great fullback!? One of those pine tree air fresheners?

The best teams throughout history might have looked better with one of these glossy hood ornaments glistening in the Sunday sun, but they never needed them to run well.

The best teams throughout history might have played better with a great wide receiver, but when was the last time a great wide receiver rushed for 1000 yards?

We made this point in January, after the Patriots were embarrassed by Baltimore, 33-14, in the wild-card round. Now it seems New England management is in lock-step with the Cold, Hard Football Facts.

Yes, that game where Baltimore jumped out to a 24 point first quarter lead because the Patriots' first four possessions ended in: Tom Brady fumble, 3 and out, Tom Brady interception, Tom Brady interception. Why did it take them so long to trade Randy Moss?

Consider the 1960s Packers. They won five titles and never had a 1,000-yard receiver, despite dominating the highest-scoring decade in NFL history. The 1970s Steelers won four Super Bowls with just a single 1,000-yard receiving season (John Stallworth in 1979). The 1990s Cowboys had Michael Irvin, but look at The Playmaker's numbers: He caught 10 TD passes just once in his career.

He also had an 8 year stretch where he went over 1,000 yards receiving in all but one of those years, when he only had 952 receiver yards. Ho hum, just your average non-all time great receiver who's in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

San Francisco Hall of Famer Jerry Rice was a classic example of a hood-ornament receiver. Best wideout in modern history? Sure. Won three Super Bowls. Played huge in big games. Owns every receiving record in the books. But he didn't make the 49ers great. He joined a dynasty in progress: he was drafted by the defending Super Bowl champs, a team that dominated the NFL with a 15-1 record in 1984. San Francisco's top wideout in that nearly perfect 1984 season? Dwight Clark, with 52 catches for 880 yards.

Yes, Jerry Rice obviously had no impact on the 49er's dynasty because they won a Super Bowl the year before they drafted him. Just like James Harrison had no impact on the Steelers 2008 Super Bowl, because they'd won one in 2005 without him. He's overated I tell you!

Moss is a classic example of a hood-ornament receiver, too. He is one of the best wideouts in history; and certainly one of the great downfield threats in history. His 151 TD receptions, second only to Rice, say it all. But the Patriots didn't need Moss to race across the finish line first three times from 2001 to 2004 and lose out on a photo finish in 2006. And they obviously never drove the distance with him, either.

And the only variable that changed for the Patriots between 2001 and 2007 was the addition of Randy Moss. They didn't lose any players to free agency or retirement, no coaches left, no players talent deteriorated due to age or injury, and no other teams in the NFL got better or worse. Fuckin' Randy Moss screwed the Pat's out of second a dynasty.

At the end of the day, the Patriots were a better team without Moss. Or, at the very least, they were a much better playoff team, and a much better playoff offense, before Moss arrived on the scene.

I've never done this in a post before, but I think the preceeding paragraph was dumb enough to warrant re-print so as to simulate a double-take.

At the end of the day, the Patriots were a better team without Moss. Or, at the very least, they were a much better playoff team, and a much better playoff offense, before Moss arrived on the scene.

Yes, the Patriots were a horrible playoff team with Randy Moss because everyone knows that deep passes aren't allowed in the NFL playoffs, thus making Randy Moss completely useless.

Sacrilege, you say? No way.

Not sacrilege, just very retarded.

In fact, there are no two sides to the argument; no way any rational person can look at the evidence, look at the Cold, Hard Football Facts, and conclude that the Tom Brady Era Patriots were a better team after they acquired Moss.

No way someone could say that maybe there were other variables that prevented the Patriots from winning the Super Bowl, aside from the burden of having one of the greatest wide receivers ever.

Sure, they were a better offense, at times, with Moss, especially in 2007. The Brady-Moss battery lit up the NFL and the record books in 2007, with a truly spectacular season for the ages. You know the story: Brady set a record with 50 TD passes; Moss set a record with 23 TD receptions; the Patriots set a record with 589 points while becoming the first 16-0 team in history. But the season ended in disaster: a 17-14 loss to the Giants -- the most spectacular statistical upset in NFL history.

Some idiot might point out that Moss scored a touchdown for the Patriots in that Super Bowl, but he'd conveniently forget to mention that Moss failed to prevent the Giants from scoring the go ahead touchdown.

The Tom Brady Era Patriots didn't suffer those kinds of playoff implosions in the days before Moss.

Except against the Colts the year before Moss arrived.

They were a better and more consistent postseason offense, and a better playoff team, period, in the days before Moss. Not blaming Moss for the downfall. Maybe it's just coincidence.

Ding ding ding ding

But you can't help but notice the difference.

I'd never been mauled by a large feline before, but then I switched to Crest toothpaste. Two days later, I'm walking down the street and a white Siberian Tiger (one of the rarest cats in the world) lept out in front of me. It was lucky for me that I got to see such an elusive animal in person, but unlucky for me that the feisty feline mauled me within an inch of my life.

What I'm trying to say is, I'm never brushing my teeth with Crest toothpaste again.

The Tom Brady Era Patriots

• Went 12-2 in the playoffs before Moss
• Went 2-2 in the playoffs with Moss

2-2 in the playoffs without Willie McGinest.

[Update: 2-2 in the playoffs with Wes Welker on the roster.]

• Won three Super Bowls before Moss
• Won zero Super Bowls with Moss

Won three Super Bowls with Josh McDaniels as a non-coordinator, won zero titles with McDaniels as an offensive coordinator.

[Update: Zero Super Bowls with Wes Welker on the roster.]

• Averaged 25.3 PPG in the playoffs before Moss
• Averaged 20.8 PPG in the playoffs with Moss

25.3 PPG with Adam Vinatieri, 20.8 PPG without Vinatieri.

[Update: Averaged 20.8 PPG in the playoffs with Welker on the roster.]

So which was the better playoff team? The club that went 12-2, won three Super Bowls and averaged 25.3 PPG; or the club that went 2-2, won zero Super Bowls and averaged 20.8 PPG? The answer is obvious. The Patriots were a record-setting playoff team in the days before Moss. They were just an ordinary playoff team with Moss.

And Moss 100% deserves all the blame for that.

Brady was certainly a better postseason quarterback in the early days, too. Whether coincidence or not, we don't know.

Yeah we don't, but I doubt having one of the best receivers of all time at his disposal is the reason his stats went down.

But we do know that one set of playoff data, one set of Cold, Hard Football Facts, is better than the other.

W-L Att.-Comp. Pct. Yards Yards per attempt TD Int. Rating Points per game Brady pre-Moss 12-2 295-486 60.7 3,217 6.6 20 9 86.2 25.3 Brady with Moss 2-2 100-151 66.2 891 5.9 8 6 82.9 20.8

The numbers are rather shocking: Brady had a reputation as a dink-and-dunk kind of quarterback in his early days. The numbers support the reputation: his 6.6 YPA in the 14 pre-Moss playoff games was just below the league wide average of about 6.8 to 6.9 YPA.

But Brady also dink-and-dunked his way to 10 straight playoff wins at one point, three Super Bowl victories, a pair of Super Bowl MVP awards, a pair of last-second, game-winning Super Bowl drives, and a record 32 completions in Super Bowl XXXVIII. Considering the Patriots seemed to play half their postseason games in snow, rain or bone-chilling cold, the numbers are pretty decent. They were certainly good enough to win consistently.

Wouldn't the 5.9 YPA during the Moss era suggest they were trying to dink-and-dunk even more with Moss?

But with Moss, the quarterback's numbers suffered badly: Brady was, at one point, the least-intercepted passer in postseason history. But he suffered not one but two three-pick playoff games with Moss as his battery mate (vs. San Diego in the 2007 AFC title game; vs. Baltimore in the 2009 wild-card round).

Randy Moss should be ashamed for making Brady throw those bad passes.

More amazingly, Brady and Moss simply could not get the ball down the field in the playoffs. Moss was supposed to be the greatest downfield threat in history. But Brady's 5.9 YPA average with Moss is incredibly poor, well below his very good career regular-season average of 7.3 YPA.

Or maybe he was trying too hard to dink-and-dunk because that'd won him 3 titles already.

And Moss was a no-show. In four playoff games with the Patriots, he caught 12 passes for 142 yards and 1 TD. That was one day of work for Deion Branch in the playoffs -- back when New England was winning championships. Put another way: the explosive Brady-Moss battery of the regular season was a major-league dud in the postseason.

At no point did Moss open stretch the field for Wes Welker or anyone else to get open. Furthermore, it's entirely Moss's fault that it seemed like every snap Brady took against the Giants and Ravens was a jailbreak for those two teams pass rushers.

[Long portion of anecdotal evidence pinning the Pats recent playoff struggles on Randy Moss redacted because I'm lazy.]

We don't believe trading Moss makes the Patriots a better team. There's no way we can make that judgment at this point. But we do know this: The Patriots ran better and faster, and crossed the finish line first more often, especially in the playoffs, before they put the shiny chrome ornament on the hood of one of the great postseason teams in history.

And everyone knows that putting a shiny chrome ornament on your car will make it break down and fail to win a Super Bowl.

Kerry J. Byrne doesn't understand what parity is

From his Cold Hard Football Facts piece for SI:

Six Signs the Parity is Dead in NFL

The NFL's decades-long effort to produce equality on the playing field is dead and buried. In fact, it suffered a gruesome, unwatchable demise in Week 7 of the 2009 season.

Perhaps it's only fitting that parity's final bloody demise came just days before Halloween,

No that's not really fitting at all. It would have been fitting if parity had died in the "Nokia Presents: The Parity is Dead Bowl."

1. The frightening pace of blowouts

Week 7 of the 2009 season offered more televised beatings than the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Topical!

Six of the 13 games last week games were uncompetitive blowouts -- each decided by 28 points or more. If that rash of routs seemed unusual, there's a good reason: it was.
Pro football had produced six four-touchdown blowouts just once before in its history: back in Week 14 of the 1970 season, the very first year of the AFL-NFL merger.

Oh noez, there were a lot of blowouts in ONE week of ONE season. Parity is obviously dead.

We shouldn't expect those kinds of blowouts in these days of league-wide efforts to level the playing field. But we're seeing them.

You know why? Because parity isn't intended to mean every single team will be competitive every year. The hope is that every team will make the playoffs every few years, and aside from a few poorly managed franchises, most teams have been competitive at some point over the past decade.

This idea will continue to elude you for the next 5 points.

2. Last-second thrills and chills are hard to find

Year after year, week after week, one NFL game after another came down to a last-second play that determined the outcome. It made for great theater in a sport that thrives on televised drama. That drama is slowly disappearing.

Here in 2009, 84 of 103 games (81.6 percent) have been decided by more than a field goal. That's the most in nearly a quarter century (since 1985) and the third most since the AFL-NFL merger. The trend began last year when 206 of 254 games (80.5 percent) were decided by more than a field goal -- also among the most since the merger.

Double-digit blowouts, meanwhile, have become the rule here in 2009, not the exception: 56 of 103 games (54.4 percent) have been decided by 10 points or more -- the most in 17 years and also among the most since the merger.

Emphasis mine. Kerry, if you don't tell us specifically where it ranks with other years since the merger, and the other years it compares to, then there's really no frame of reference. We're like children who've wandered into a movie and ask "what's going on."

In addition, final scores aren't necessarily indicative of how close the game was. (Anybody remember the Steelers' double digit "blowout" of the Vikings?)

Furthermore, high number of blowouts in a year != lack of parity, because parity should not be looked at on a week-by-week scale.

3. The horrifying divide in the standings

For the first time in NFL history there are three undefeated teams after Week 7 -- Indianapolis, Denver and New Orleans. And all three look virtually unbeatable, dominating opponents week after week in virtually all phases of the game.

In hindsight we know that the Broncos got absolutely dismantled by a 3-3 Ravens team. Indy has been 7-0 about 100 times and not won the Super Bowl. The Saints have been to the playoffs three times in the past 20 years, so they may not be the best team to bring up in an article saying parity is dead in the NFL.

But at the very same time that the NFL boasts three unbeatens nearly halfway through the season, the league also fields three winless teams -- Tennessee, Tampa and St. Louis. These teams barely look competitive, getting dominated week after week in virtually all phases of the game.

Tennesse won their division last year. It took a monumental collapse on Tampa's part to not make the playoffs last year. St. Louis is 5 years removed from its last playoff appearance and 10 years from their last Super Bowl win.

This great divide, meanwhile, comes after a pair of historic NFL seasons. In 2007, the Patriots became the first 16-0 team in league history; in 2008, the Lions became the first 0-16 team in league history.

In two separate years, one team was historically good, and one team was historically bad.

In two separate years, Brett Favre was really bad, and Brett Favre was really good. What conclusions about Brett Favre's overall effectiveness throughout his career can we draw from this?

A league ruled by "parity" simply does not produce historically good and historically bad seasons year after year.

Yes, you can. The year the Patriots went 16-0, the rest of the league was competitive, and the Patriots lost the Superbowl to a team they beat in week 17. The year the Lions went 0-16, the Titans and Giants looked like favorites to make the Superbowl, but were bounced in the divisional round.

4. The gruesome disparity on the scoreboard

The Saints have scored 31 touchdowns this year (26 on offense).

The Browns have scored just six touchdowns (four on offense).

The Saints are good. The Browns are bad. This does not prove parity or lack thereof.

5. The bloodbath on the stat sheets

The gridiron Grand Canyon that divides the league's winners and losers is also evident on the stat sheet. In fact, we haven't seen these kinds of disparities in statistical performances since the early days of the AFL.

Peyton Manning, for example, once again leads the league in passer rating (114.5), a mark which could go down as one of the highest ever (he holds the record with a 121.1 passer rating in 2004).
Cleveland quarterback Derek Anderson, meanwhile, has posted an abysmal passer rating of 40.6. He's on pace to become the lowest-rated qualifying passer (14 attempts per game) since Ryan Leaf in 1998 (39.0). Oakland's JaMarcus Russell is not much better (47.2).

Peyton Manning will probably retire as the best QB ever in the NFL. The fact that Derek Anderson and JaMarcus Russel are still starting is a testament to bad team management, and not parity.

6. The haunting specter of elite powers

Advocates of NFL "parity" say any team can win in any given year. Sure, it happens from time to time. But the league's always been like that.

13 different teams have won the Superbowl in the past 20 years, so really, more than 50% of the time, some "random" team will win in a given year.

The fact of the matter in today's NFL is that four teams -- all in the AFC -- have held an iron grip over the NFL for more than a decade. Denver, Indy, New England and Pittsburgh can be counted on year after year -- with the occasional exception here and there -- to stand among the very best teams in the league.

See if you notice a trend:

Indy: #1 QB of all time
New England: Top 5 QB of all time
Pittsburgh: Likely HOF QB

Conclusion: All very white fan bases!

Also, Denver? Dominant for the past decade? They've made the playoffs four times this decade, but advanced to the divisional round just once, and were promptly shown the door.

Those four have won 11 of the past 14 AFC titles.

Somewhat of an arbitrary number, but yes, they've all had likely HOF QB's in that time frame.

They've won six of the past eight Super Bowls and eight of the past 12.

And eight of the past 39.

Over the past 15 years, the AFC's Big Four have filled 19 of 30 spots in the AFC title game.

HOF QB's will do that for your team.

There's a good chance you'll see the NFL's Big Four battling for the right to go to the Super Bowl once again. They're a combined 22-4 after Week 7, and if the playoffs began today, they'd hold four of the top five seeds in the AFC. There's a good chance one of the Big Four will hoist the Lombardi Trophy once again in February 2010.

I'll eat my hat if Denver wins the Superbowl, but I definitely wouldn't be surprised if New England, Indy, or Pittsburgh won. However, I don't think anyone would be shocked if Philly, New Orleans, Minnesota, or Baltimore won the Superbowl either. Damn this predictable, unbalanced league that only offers 7-9 likely winners of the championship!

The Colts, meanwhile, are in the midst of an unprecedented string of six straight 12-win seasons and well on their way to making it seven straight -- a fact that alone should kill any notion of "parity."

PEYTON MANNING IS THE BEST QB IN NFL HISTORY. HE IS THE ONE CONTROLLED VARIABLE IN THAT COLTS EQUATION.

The Patriots, of course, are two years removed from the first 16-0 season in history

In which they were not league champions.

they won a record 34 games over two seasons earlier this decade (2003-04), they need one postseason victory to set a record for most in a decade (15) and they've set every win streak in history this decade, regular season (21), postseason (10) and combined (21). Brady, meanwhile, has won a record 78.5 percent of every game he's started (106-29) in his career. Again, all facts that should, on their face, prove that concepts such as "parity" are dead.

The Pats have been the class of the NFL this decade. They have been fortunate to have: a HOF QB, a HOF coach, and one of the best front offices in the NFL which constantly turns over talent. This all came after being a middling team for most of the 90's.

Parity's postmortem

There's no perfect explanation for the death of parity, especially in the wake of the league's open efforts to keep it alive. But it's obvious the league's efforts to legislate equality have failed.

The NFL has a constantly adjusting salary cap which is death for many a would be dynasty (Anyone remember how quickly Tampa Bay faded into mediocrity after their Super Bowl win?). The fact that the Colts and Patriots have remained dominant is due in large part to their quaterbacks. Unless, you want to regulate how long a team can keep a quarterback, you can't do much better than the current formula for shuffling the deck of NFL teams.

Here's one guess why: the NFL, with so many players and so many coaches and so much turnover and so many moving parts, is all about management. And, right now, management has never been more important.

Agree.

Humans are not equal in talent, whether they're in the front office, on the sidelines or in the huddle, and the notion that a few rules will "level the playing field" is being mocked openly on the field right now.

What the NFL has done, actually, is create a system that ends up rewarding well managed teams and punishing poorly managed teams. The Colts, Patriots and Steelers continue to fine tune the system year after the year and win year after year. The Browns, Lions and teams like (in recent years) the Redskins make poor and sometimes desperate off-the-field decisions that make them uncompetitive on the field.

So what do you want? A rule against effective management?

Back in the day, before the efforts to "level the playing field," a poorly managed team could splurge for a season or two on talent and compete. Money is the great equalizer. But that weapon has been removed and now, more than ever, not less than ever, NFL teams are dependent upon smart decision-makers and good executives. The NFL has maximized, not minimized, inequality on the playing field by maximizing the importance of management.

That is...fucking...RETARDED. So a poorly managed team could splurge on a few big names and instantly compete? What happens when you get a well managed team that splurges on whoever they want, whenever they want? I'll tell you what you get: The New York Yankees. Is that what you want Kerry? Is that what you call parity?