Ron Borges wrote this in an article a few weeks after New England acquired Moss. Walsh is Tom Walsh, the Raiders' O.C. during Moss' last season in Oakland. Just to remind everyone, Fred Biletnikoff's "pedestal" was a little higher than Moss'. Biletnikoff was MVP of Super Bowl XI.

"Walsh described a play in a loss to the Cleveland Browns in which a play-action pass was called and Moss was asked to run a square-in on the weak side. The linebacker was sucked up inside by the fake, according to Walsh, and Moss was expected to run the in-route behind him into the open area. As Walsh recalled it, "He runs a 9 [deep go] route.

"Andrew Walter was at quarterback. He makes the play-fake and a huge hole opens up for Randy in the middle of the field but he's running down the sideline. Walter nearly threw his arm out pulling the ball back. When Randy gets to the sidelines, [wide receivers coach] Freddie Biletnikoff says, 'What were you doing?'

"Randy told Fred, 'I didn't feel like running the 6 route on the dirt part of the infield.' That's the Randy I coached. There were some games where out of 28 plays he'd have 13 or 14 busts. Wrong routes, wrong reads. Dogging it. Whatever."

Moss was asked about such criticism last month when he was acquired by the Patriots for a fourth-round draft choice.

"I don't really like to answer questions like that because the people that question it probably never played football in their life or been on the same pedestal that I've been on," he said at the time. "I have a microscope [on me] and my microscope is very big.

"The people that talk about me as far as my work ethic and my competitive nature and me going out there and playing football, the best thing I can say to you, male or female, all you have to do is line up against me and see what happens. My coaches that I've played for, the players that I've played with, never seemed to have a problem about me and my character; only the media does."

Can we stop talking about Moss....He is dead to me.