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.