RANDY MOSS

BONUS POINT HALL OF FAMER

One of the first things kids learn when they play sports is how to be part of a team. It is a great life lesson, maybe the most worthwhile thing that can be derived from playing a game with a ball. You never question or show up a teammate. You respect authority. You always give it your best effort. Randy Moss never learned those lessons. We can trace Randy's criminal career all the way back to high school. In 1995, he and another student gave a major beatdown to a kid named Ernest Roy Johnson at Dupont High in South Carolina. Ernest was hospitalized with injuries to his spleen, liver and kidney and also suffered a concussion. He spent some time in an intensive care unit. Moss lost a scholarship to Notre Dame because of the fight. While on probation, he tested positive for marijuana once, and was in the same car with a friend who was arrested for possession another time. That got him kicked off Florida State's football team. The kid who took the beatdown from Moss later filed a motion in circuit court which said the judge never followed through on his promise to make Moss pay. Well, Moss never did have to pay for that. But he did pay for choking the mother of his child - 30 days in the slammer for domestic battery. After two seasons, three colleges, and about 50 misdemeanors, Randy decided he was ready for the NFL. Randy had been scheduled to participate in the NFL's scouting combine on April 18-19, 1999, but he canceled his trip to Indianapolis the day the event began because, according to his agent, an abscessed wisdom tooth flared up and forced him to have six teeth removed. The abscessed tooth must have really made him mad, because Moss was seen by scouts cursing out a sporting goods store manager during the time he was supposed to be at the combine. Randy got upset when he noticed they didn't have any Marshall caps in stock. If almost any other player had been a last-minute no-show, it wouldn't have been a big deal.  But this was the talk of the combine because teams had more questions about Moss than any other player in the draft.  One scout said he watched Moss "quit and walk off the field" against Miami of Ohio because "a midget corner who couldn't run or cover was pressing him." The potential reward in selecting Moss in the draft was enormous, but so was the risk.  On draft day Moss went into freefall, slipping to the No. 21 pick in the NFL draft. "The past had a lot to do with it,'' he was quoted as saying, in a marvelous understatement.  Randy's first incident as a member of the Minnesota Vikings came when he was kicked off an airplane after a confrontation with a flight attendant over carry-on luggage. The Pittsburgh-bound US Airways flight had taxied across the tarmac but returned to the gate at Yeager Airport to have Moss removed. The matter was turned over to the Federal Aviation Administration and the FBI. Later in 1999 Moss was fined $10,000 for excessive verbal abuse of side judge Larry Rose. During a game against the Chicago Bears on Nov. 14, Moss was flagged after Cris Carter caught his third touchdown of the day. Moss continued to argue with an official about a call on the previous play. Randy was fined a second time for abusing game officials, this time for $40,000, after he squirted a water bottle at a ref during the Vikings' 49-37 playoff loss to the St. Louis Rams. Randy's rampage against the refs continued into his second season. He got ejected from a game against Tampa Bay in October, 2000 and was fined $25,000 for grabbing field judge Lloyd McPeters' arm.  He had to cough up an extra $15,000 as part of an agreement he made not to get into any more trouble with game officials after the previous season's water-squirting incident.  There was also one game where Moss went ill on a security guard who would not to let some of his friends on the field. After the Vikings were thrashed 41-0 in the NFC Championship Game, Randy stepped up and passed out the blame.  He complained about his role -- or lack thereof -- in the offense. He questioned the desire and commitment of his teammates. (Funny, those same teammates could have said the same thing about him.)  He called out coach Dennis Green, saying that the team wasn't prepared. The Vikes basically let Moss' babble go, excusing it as an in-the-heat-of-the-moment remark.  During the season, several TV broadcasters broke down game tape that showed Randy dogging it on the field.  John Madden pointed out that Moss made a habit of not running hard on plays that weren't called for him.  ESPN's Merril Hoge noted that Moss wasn't exactly searching out an oxygen mask following a Vikings series where he was dogging it. That offseason Randy gave an interview to ESPN the magazine where he admitted that he doesn't always give 100 percent. ``It doesn't really bother me when people talk about me taking plays off,'' Moss said in the interview. ``It only bothers me when I'm on the field and I take a play off, and the ball's thrown and I'm not where I should be. Or if (running back) Robert (Smith) comes through there and I'm taking that play off. Only when something bad happens on the field.'' 2001 was a bonus point bonanza for our hero. The Vikes signed him to a $75 million contract during the offseason. After Randy got paid, he wasn't accountable to anyone any more. Almost every week he was up to some new shenanigans.  The festivities kicked off in the preseason. Randy was fined $5000 on August 31 by the NFL for wearing a Nike cap on the sidelines during two exhibition games. The NFL has an exclusive contract with Reebok.  During their loss to the Bears, Randy and Cris Carter railed at their teammates and coaches on the sidelines, making it clear that they thought none of what was going wrong for the Vikings was their fault. Coach Denny Green had to take over the play calling at one point just to show Carter and Moss that their offensive problems were due to execution, not Sherm Lewis. The St. Paul Pioneer Press quoted sources as saying the receivers weren’t following the play calls, and started running their own routes to try to induce Daunte Culpepper to throw to them. Later on in the season Randy dropped one of the best quotes ever. On taking plays off: "Do I play up to my top performance, my ability every time? Maybe not. I just keep doing what I do and that is playing football. When I make my mind up, I am going out there to tear somebody's head off. When I go out there and play football, man, it's not anybody telling me to play or how I should play. I play when I want to play." The quote made sports headlines all over the country. The next he was given a chance to redeem himself. A reporter asked whether those comments were taken out of context. "Hell, no," Moss said. "That is what I said. When I want to play, I'll play. There's nobody here on the face of the earth that can make me go out here and play football. I can go out here on the field and suit up and stand on the sideline and play. At my highest level? I don't know. If I want to go out here and play at my highest level, I'll do that." The steady stream of Bonus Points from Moss continued. On November 12th the Vikings fined him $15,000 for verbally abusing a group of corporate sponsors on a team bus. Randy picked up a few $10,000 fines for taunting over the course of the year. The dumbest one has to be when he was penalized during Minnesota's 27-24 loss to a horrible Detroit team on December 16th. That was the Lions' FIRST win of the season. Late in the season there were numerous reports of Vikings players  livid with the wide receiver's approach - both on and off the field. There were hints in some comments made by tight end Byron Chamberlain to a Chicago Sun-Times columnist. "I play hard all the time," Chamberlain was quoted as saying. "Do you write hard all the time? I'll bet you don't just write hard sometimes." The columnist, Rick Telander, referred to Moss, saying that the wide receiver only plays hard when he feels like it. "That's what I was going to say," Chamberlain said, with a sick look on his face. "There you go." Even his partner in crime Cris Carter took a shot at Moss on his way out the door. He said that, as Moss' mentor, he took the statement personally. "When you've been playing as long as I have, and I think that with my approach to the game, it bothers you in a sense that ... for me, it's more personal," Carter said. During the off-season, Randy went to a few anger management classes, although not as many as he was ordered to do.  He basically called the anger management courses a joke. Randy was back at it in September 2002, getting thrown in jail for pushing a traffic officer a half-block with his car as she was trying to stop him from making an illegal turn.  He got released from jail the next day and walked out whistling.  Police also found a small quantity of marijuana in Moss' car, but for some reason no charge was filed. Since 2002  is just the second year of his $75 million contract, we can expect Randy Moss to continue lighting up the Bonus Point scoreboard for years to come.

 

1998

Moss did everything he could for the sad sack Rough Necks team that drafted him, including piloting the Goodyear blimp, but those lovable losers couldn't overcome dreadful ownership and were eventually disbanded.  Randy was picked up by the Iceland Muckrackers, where he helped them win five straight down the stretch.  Randy won the Fetch Award, given to the top receiver in the game, in a unanimous vote.

 

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