This probably won’t happen. The guy seems adamant about his retirement, and his swan song performance in Minnesota wasn’t especially memorable. Nevertheless, “the question” has been circulating amongst the mouths of Patriots fans for two weeks now, and it doesn’t seem to be losing steam. There are two types of Patriots fans: those who think the idea of bringing Moss back smells like an act of desperation, and those who want him back no matter what it smells like. The benefits of Moss’ return are solid in theory; you’d have a legit deep-threat to spread the field, and New England’s offense would finally be able to breathe. His abilities to run and catch demand defensive respect. He provides answers that the Patriots lack. But again, that’s all in theory.
Severing ties with Randy Moss is not the reason the Patriots are 5-3 right now. Problems exist that Moss has absolutely nothing to do with. So we can’t dupe ourselves into thinking they sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees or anything. But still, Moss was a card-carrying member of the New England Patriots. He was beloved by the fans, despite the troublemaker persona. And although we can’t know for sure how he and Brady got along in their personal lives, it’s clear that they were brothers on the field. It’s the nostalgia that’s fueling this whole push to bring him back.
The Patriots won’t bring him back, and there can only be two reasons: either he isn’t up to the task of playing wide receiver at the level he once was, or his return would be an admission of error on the part of the people who let him go. Based on his stint in Minnesota, we can give the brains behind the Patriots the benefit of the doubt here. He really doesn’t seem to be as good as he once was. The problem, really, is that we just can’t be certain. Moss’ departure from New England was treated by Bill and the players with the same ambiguous apathy as Bodden’s release last week, and even Albert’s release yesterday. It’s a kind of ‘Oh yeah, we just decided to go a different way’ sorta thing. Clearly, that’s how the Patriots operate when it comes to revealing inside information -- they don’t. This organization simply does not show their hands, even after they’ve been called. The ones who are generally left in the dark are the fans, who really just want to know what’s happening with their team. Even listening to analysts and reporters and “inside guys” who work in New England -- some of whom even work at Gillette Stadium and officially for the Patriots -- will only yield so much hardcore information. The Patriots are the Skull & Bones Society of the NFL.
Why teams cut ties with great players is beyond me. Why Danny Ainge let James Posey and Tony Allen and Eddie House go, I’ll never understand. We’ve all heard the stories of Randy Moss adding strain to the locker room, and I’m sure there’s even more that we don’t know. He probably did cause some issues. But I can’t help but think that having Shaq and Kobe in the same locker room also caused some mayhem in Los Angeles -- and won some championships. You can go down the list of troubled teams that won together despite barely being able to tolerate each other. It’s difficult to speculate how much this theory would apply to the Patriots, but I think one thing is very clear: New England fans have not been totally satisfied by the way Moss left. Patriots fans have never really been given definitive answers, aside from the he-was-a-problem thing. Now that the Patriots are struggling, we’re seeing some of these unanswered questions coming to light.
