Fractured History

Tim Kawakami, who last year told us that the Kerry Collins move was the most wonderful the Raiders had ever made and wondered why we didn't ship Rich Gannon out last June, now tells us that the Randy Moss trade proves the Raiders are doomed, doomed, doomed! Moss, he says, is a player no other team clamored for and that no Raider superstars (and they are now?) pushed for.

"When it became clear that Owens would be changing teams, he was wooed not only by team executives, but also by superstar players like Ray Lewis and Donovan McNabb, who knew what his addition would be worth.
"When it became clear that the Vikings were looking to deal Moss, we heard not a peep from any big-name player or mid-name player or any player at all saying his team must acquire Moss immediately."

Stop right there. It had been clear for several weeks that an Owens deal was going down because Owens had stated publicly which teams interested him and because his former team, the 49ers, said they were going to unload him as part of their ill-starred rebuilding project. The whole thing was done very publicly, and for a week or so it seemed inevitable he'd end up in Baltimore before Owens suddenly changed his mind and signed with Philly instead. Hell, people had pretty much figured out that Owens was moving by the middle of the 2003 season.

Conversely, it wasn't really clear that Moss was moving until he moved. Vikings ownership kept negotiations fairly quiet, and the incoming ownership team said they had no intention of trading Moss. The major sports press treated the Moss thing as a rumor. It was in the wind, but no one would say anything to the cameras. The Raiders said nothing. Moss was quiet, expressing no preferences about moving one way or the other. Daunte Culpepper was equivocal. This is probably why no "big name players" spoke. They weren't in on it. They didn't know whether Moss was really in play or not. Jerry Porter didn't know about the deal until he read about it in the papers. I would assume the same holds true for Kerry Collins, Warren Sapp, and Charles Woodson. I doubt that anyone in the organization outside of Davis, Lombardi, Trask, and possibly Turner knew that negotiations had progressed as far as they had.

"Owens was the subject of an unprecedented tussle between Philadelphia and Baltimore, which both know a thing or two about talent and team chemistry.
Moss was the subject of serious interest from apparently nobody but the Raiders, who will get him relatively cheaply because it was a total buyers' market.
The Ravens, who still badly need a big-play receiver, took a look at Moss this time. And passed."

Actually, according on Don Banks of Sports Illustrated, the Ravens and the Falcons were both in negotiations for Moss, with Ozzie Newsome (the Ravens' GM) describing the negotiations as "serious". The real sticking point was that both the Ravens and Falcons draft later in the first round than Minnesota does, severely limiting the value of their picks. They simply didn't have the ammo that the Raiders had. The Vikings would apparently part with Moss only if they could snag Braylon Edwards or Mike Williams (who Mike Tice feels is a once-in-a-lifetime talent). Both of those guys will probably be gone by the 10th pick--Minnesota drafts 18th. The evidence suggests to me that the Vikings walked away from the Ravens, not the other way around.

"Owens caused controversy, but it was always because he burned to win at all cost, even to his own reputation. When he got to a team that won, he sacrificed his long-term health to play in the Super Bowl weeks before anyone imagined he could make it back from ankle surgery.
Moss walked off the field with two seconds left in a close game last season, squirted water at a referee during a playoff game a year earlier and has generally conducted himself as though winning were a nice but slightly unnecessary part of the Randy Moss Experience."

Actually, lots of people questioned Owens's commitment to winning when he was on a team that won. It's easy to forget now, but the 49ers under Steve Mariucci won consistently, even taking a few playoff games. But people wondered aloud whether Owens ran routes when the play wasn't to him, and questioned his willingness to throw downfield blocks during this time. They compared him unfavorably to Jerry Rice, calling him an arrogant me-first self-promoter out for personal glory. (Some sportswriters kept saying that right up to this year's Super Bowl, saying he was distracting his team and the media to draw attention to himself.) His performance in the Super Bowl was heroic, if sadly insufficient. What it may indicate is that Owens needed a change of scenery to play his best football and be his best self. That may be true with Moss as well.

Also, we must bear in mind that Moss has only missed three games in his career (all last year because of a torn hamstring). And, while playing hurt last year, he scored 13 touchdowns in 13 games. (To put that in perspective, the all-time Raider record for touchdowns in a single season is 16. Moss has eclipsed that twice in his seven year career.)

Now it is legitimate to question the mertis of the Moss trade. It doesn't address, directly anyway, core problems with the defense and running game, and Moss will cost a lot of money to maintain. Still, let's keep our histories straight. Owens's brilliant performance in a Super Bowl doesn't change what people said about him, or what he did, during his time in San Francisco. All the questions people ask about Moss now, they were asking about Owens last year at about this time. Moss's test will come this September. He may flop, he may be brilliant, or he may be sub-par. I don't know, but Davis thought he was worth the gamble; and he may well be right.