Tennessee Titans unlikely winners of Randy Moss sweepstakes
In what was the biggest waiver wire day in NFL history, the Tennessee Titans were the big winners. After 48 hours of speculation on where Randy Moss would end up, the waiver wire passed and Moss is heading to Music City.
The Minnesota Vikings officially waived Moss on Tuesday, just four weeks after trading for him from New England. Moss can now become the first player in NFL history to catch a touchdown pass for three different teams in one season.
The Titans were the only team of 32 to make a claim on the controversial, future Hall-of-Famer. Titans’ coach Jeff Fisher had been discussing the possibility of acquiring Moss with fellow coaches and management since Moss was waived.
"Randy has been a tremendous threat wherever he has been," Fisher said. "We will bring him up to speed as quickly as possible."
More good news for the Titans is that they were on the list of teams that Moss was interested in joining. He intends to report to the team this week. If he had refused to report, the Titans could have put him right back on waivers or suspended him.
"Randy's excited to get back playing football," Moss’ agent Joel Segal said. "He's ready to go and looking forward to get there."
Several Titans players had lobbied for the team to acquire Moss, including star running back Chris Johnson and safety Michael Griffin. Johnson is still having a great season but not quite the one he had last year with over 2000 yards. That’s been largely
due to teams stacking up against the run and paying little attention to the Titans’ passing game. That will now change.
"You can't put eight in a box if you got Randy Moss out there on the outside. If you've got Randy Moss out there, you just can't play him one-on-one. I feel like Randy would be a great addition to this team, be a great addition to our receiving group and
really help us go deep in the play-offs."
The addition of Moss makes the Titans a dangerous team offensively. They have the explosive Johnson in the backfield. They have the dynamic Vince Young under centre. Now they have a future Hall-of-Fame receiver in Moss, plus the improving receivers around
him. Kenny Britt, who was becoming their best receiver, is out for a while with a hamstring injury. Moss is a good short-term replacement, and when Britt is back, that will be quite the dual threat at the position.
The Titans got another chance of adding Moss after they passed on him in the 1998 NFL draft when they were the Tennessee Oilers. They instead drafted Kevin Dyson 16th overall. Moss was selected 21st by the Vikings.
"Randy has had a terrific career. He's a Hall of Fame receiver. You don't always make the right decision," Fisher said. "The draft is an imperfect science. We've had No. 1's that haven't panned out for us before."
This is a low-risk, high-reward scenario for the Titans. Moss is only due to make $3.34 million for the rest of the season. He becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. The Titans can either sign him, or if they lose him, they’ll receive
a compensatory draft pick.
Most importantly, this helps the Titans attempt a deep play-off run. They haven’t won a play-off game since January 2004. Their one and only Super Bowl appearance was in the 1999-2000 season. Fisher was still their coach back then. With his 16 years with
one team, he should be able to handle the outspoken receiver.
Moss has the best resume of any Titan receiver in history. He has 948 receptions, 14,778 yards and 153 touchdowns. That will help a Titans offence that’s second in scoring, but 24th in passing yards per game. Vince Young has the NFL’s best passer
rating at 103.1. He just got himself a new weapon.
The Titans are on their bye week in Week 9, which will give Moss some time to find his role in the offence. The Titans are at Miami in Week 10 and still have five divisional games remaining. The addition of Moss may have tilted the AFC South in their favour.
This provides some flashbacks of that draft, when 20 teams passed on Moss before he started his outstanding career. The same thing happened on November 3 with 21 teams passing on him. Maybe Moss will be playing with a chip on his shoulder all over again,
and we know how dangerous he is when he does that.
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