Only Moss' body clock is ticking now
BILL PLASCHKE
The wide receiver, a human time bomb throughout a troubled NFL career, seemingly has found contentment at 30. Playing for unbeaten Patriots hasn't hurt, either.
GLENDALE, ARIZ. -- They spend their lives carrying it, throwing it, kicking it, regarding their most important possession as a lifeless object completely under their control.
But then, sometimes, they wake up 10 years later and realize it was the other way around.
Football has carried them to a new perspective. Football has thrown them into a different landscape. Football has kicked them into adulthood.
Sometimes, a guy like Randy Moss sits for one of the few interviews of a mostly nasty and obnoxious career, two earrings gleaming, red bandanna sticking out from under his baseball cap, and you are ready to pounce on him.
Then he pounces on you.
"I am very, very blessed to be where I'm at."
And this:
"Anything that will contribute to a victory, I'm willing."
And this:
"The game has helped me grow and mature."
Then, finally, this:
"I'm living the dream."
No, no, no, I was dreaming.
This is Randy Moss?
This is the guy who once, as a Minnesota Viking, walked off the field before the end of the game?
This is the guy who spent two seasons dogging it in Oakland, cutting routes short and ending drills early and admittedly failing to even care?
This is a guy who once pretended to moon Green Bay fans, acknowledged smoking marijuana, and bumped a female traffic control officer with his car?
And, oh yeah, remember when he squirted a referee with a water bottle?
As the ticking time bomb on the stoic New England Patriots, Moss is the focus of attention Tuesday at Super Bowl media day.
We circle him carefully, we talk softly, we try ever-so-gently to defuse and dissect and . . .
Boom!
That explosion we feel isn't Moss, but our expectations.
He is pleasant. He is reflective. He isn't apologetic, but he is clearly humbled.
He is, at age 30, finally a grown-up.
"How I approached the game when I was younger, I was very angry, not at anyone in particular, just the game of football," he says. "Now I still carry that same chip on my shoulder, but now I do understand that I'm a little bit older."
Older, wiser, and even better?
Before this season, Moss teetered in Terrell Owens Land, a great talent destined to be remembered only as a great pain.
The Vikings dumped him. The Raiders disliked him.
