{image1} Any Packers fan still upset at Randy Moss and his "Moon Over Lambeau" stunt can take solace in this simple fact.
Moss is a loser. Always has been, always will be.
He's a player who will be judged, in football perspective, as having been one of the most cancerous forces inside an NFL locker room.
It's not just that HE will never win anything of consequence. The entire Minnesota Viking Nation will someday look back at Moss as one big, expensive, narcissistic waste of time and effort.
Indeed, they may look back and think what MIGHT have been, if only somebody had the balls to file for divorce a lot sooner. Trust me on this; the Randy Moss story in Minnesota ends only one of two ways. Either he hangs 'em up a Viking, with Super Bowl glory in the team's trophy case. Or somebody someday holds a somber press conference saying, "Well, we really tried, but it just didn't work out."
Forget all the 48-hour clatter about Moss and his "disgusting act" -- in the words of Joe Buck -- because the mooning was neither the sign of the sports apocalypse, nor the most outrageous thing ever done in the end zone.
What's disgusting is how far the Vikings will go to protect, defend and coddle this 10-year-old trapped in a man's body. It's disgusting that Red McCombs would hire a barely qualified coach just to appease this baby. A coach who went out of his way to create a "Randy Ratio" that failed worse than "New Coke." A coach who was then rewarded by his cornrowed melanoma with one treasonous act after another.
McCombs said last week, "If the players in that locker room don't mind Randy Moss as a teammate, then I am fine with that." This is the ultimate copout for an owner. Of course fellow players won't complain about Randy. They want to keep their jobs!
And it's not so much about Moss being an embarrassment on every level to everybody except himself. Hell, if he were just a jerk that would be manageable. The fundamental question about Moss is whether he's an indispensable part of the Vikings equation.
Sadly, most people take it as gospel, that he is.
I say simply: Oh yeah? Prove it.
Show me the most recent and appropriate example of a wide receiver that leads his team to the promised land. It can't be the Patriots, who employ wideouts who are unrecognizable even while sitting on your couch watching the game with you.
The Buccaneers won with a Grade-A jerk in Keyshawn Johnson, but he was hardly critical to their title. If he was, he wouldn't have been de-activated the following year and told to beat it.
Ditto the Ravens, who had Brandon Stokely as their leading receiver on Super Sunday.
Even the Rams, thermonuclear as they were, didn't rely on just ONE guy to perform mid-air miracles like the Vikings expect from Moss.
In the last 25 years, I can only count the following wideouts on WINNING Super Bowl teams as Hall of Fame material. Jerry Rice, for sure. Michael Irvin, probably. Torry Holt, someday. John Taylor, should be. And Rod Smith, doubtful.
The last team to both hoist the Lombardi Trophy AND send a wide receiver to the Hall of Fame? The 1980 Steelers, who sent both Swann and Stallworth.
To put it simply, the Vikings are furiously chasing the Loch Ness Monster of pro football theories. Like the cranks who swear that ol' Nessie is out there somewhere, the Vikings really believe that this fake-mooning, water-squirting, cop-bumping, half-assing, early-leaving, one-man karma wrecking ball is their savior.
And yet, listen to the refrain of Vikings fans who say (without any rational thought or analytical research) that "you can't get rid of him, he's just too good." Really. Vikings fans can confront their own moment of truth, if you ask them to throw either Moss or Dante Culpepper under the bus.
Anybody who says Culpepper is either lying or a member of Randy's posse.
"But you don't have to choose," Moss apologists insist. "You can keep them both." Well sure you can. But the choice is not between a cranky, high-maintenance Moss and a ham sandwich.
The choice would be between Moss and another wide receiver. One who presumably would be a little more, ahem, "team oriented" for lack of a better catchall phrase. As good as Moss may be (when he wants to be), remember that he's only MARGINALLY better than other top-flight NFL wideouts.
So if you think he's the best wide receiver in football (and Holt, Owens, plus a half-dozen other guys would make a loud argument against that), he's still only 5-10 percent better on the margins of excellence.
That boils it down to the following sober decision. Do you trash team unity, discipline, sanity and cohesion, for a 10 percent premium on a player who averages about seven touches per game?
Not that I am saying moving Moss and his massive contract would be easy. Once it became known that he was even on the block, Moss would probably react with violent childishness, perhaps going into "shutdown mode" as he tried to grapple with the difficult notion that he's not wanted (always the most cutting of emotions for today's pampered athlete).
The Vikes have already set the bar ridiculously high at three No. 1 picks, and that is just a starting point. In reality, only a madman would turn down two No. 1s, if you could make the salary issues work.
Think about it. Would you trade Moss straight up for Roy Williams in Detroit? What about using one No. 1 to move up for USC's Mike Williams (remember him?) and using the other on defense? It takes blatant dishonesty to say that the Vikings would suddenly lack explosiveness on offense if either a stud rookie or a proven vet with less baggage replaced Moss.
And yet, the Vikings have made their choice clear, in a way that is bordering on pathological.
To them, Moss is The One Ring, and they are Smeagol.
God help them. But if you are a Packers fan, you WANT Moss in that purple No. 84, you NEED him in that purple No. 84. Pray it will be such, for as long as the Vikings can stomach him. The "Randy Ratio" may be dead, but the "Cult of Randy" is alive and well.
This undeniable truth may not soothe a bitter home loss in the playoffs, but at least it's something.
Steve is a native Washingtonian and has worked in sports talk radio for the last 11 years. He worked at WTEM in 1993 anchoring Team Tickers before he took a full time job with national radio network One-on-One Sports.
A graduate of UC Santa Barbara, Steve has worked for WFNZ in Charlotte where his afternoon show was named "Best Radio Show." Steve continues to serve as a sports personality for WLZR in Milwaukee and does fill-in hosting for Fox Sports Radio.
