Randy Moss MVP Debate
I wrote about Randy Moss this week, and the stories are starting to pile up on either side of a debate whether or not the receiver should be acclaimed or ostracized.
Jason Whitlock, who I think is one of the top five sportswriters in the nation thinks Moss should be included in the MVP debate. He says that Moss used to be immature, but that doesn’t matter this season for the purposes of MVP voting. He also says that Moss does more for Tom Brady than Tom Brady does for Randy. I don’t know about all that.
Jim Trotter at SI.com says that there should be no MVP for Moss. I love Jim Trotter’s money quote on this one where he not only talks about Moss quitting on his teams, but how in a bottom line game like the NFL Moss probably cost many a man his job in his campaign to get the hell out of Oakland.
I understand that this debate is framed a little bit differently than the article that I wrote. I wrote that people shouldn’t be praising Randy Moss, and now this will open the argument to people who want to talk about Brady vs. Randy. I have little interest in that argument except where the people are using Moss’ despicable selfishness in the past as an excuse to deny him any special acclaims this season.
Anyway, go ahead and weigh in in the comments if you would like.
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6 Responses to “Randy Moss MVP Debate”
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Three questions to answer in order to come up with your “right” answer.
1) What should the MVP reward? Is it just playing contribution for the current season, or should we use a broader definition of merit that includes quality of play over time, sportsmanship, citizenship, and whatever other fluffy attributes we can think of.
2) Assuming we’re just looking at playing contribution for the current season (cuz if it’s more than that it’s no longer an interesting award to me), how do we quantify that? Is it whose play made the biggest difference from previous seasons? Whose efforts contributed the most points? Who helped prevent the most points? Who’s the best at their position? Who is irreplaceable? Who you’d choose to keep if you could keep one player from the whole team?
3) Then, based on your answer to #2, you can start arguing about who fits the description. I think this is particularly tough with the Pats, because their combination of players, particularly Brady, Moss, Welker, and the O-line is so strong. If I have to pick only one player from the team to keep, I pick Brady. If I have to name who made the biggest difference from previous seasons, I pick Moss. If I have to come up with replacements that would yield the same or better results, I think Manning or Romo could probably fill Brady’s shoes (after being Belichized, natch), but I’m not sure who could do the same things Moss does. T.O. or Marvin Harrison, maybe, but I’m not as confident about that. Then there’s everyone else in the league to consider.
I’m not going to be disappointed if Brady or Moss get it. Brady is going to end up with the best season numbers of any QB ever, and I think the addition of Moss turned a very strong, probably 13-3 or 14-2 team into one of the best teams ever.
While I’m at it, here’s my money quote from the Trotter piece:
“Would I feel differently if Moss had expressed remorse for the way he handled himself in Oakland and his final year in Minnesota? If he was sincere, absolutely. But Moss has shown no contrition. If anything, he probably feels emboldened because things worked out just as he had hoped.”
So the MVP award becomes a vehicle to reward or punish all sorts of things that don’t apply to the year in question and maybe didn’t even happen on the field…and a key criteria is how a player *feels*. Criminies. Maybe this guy should be writing about figure skating. (Cue angry responses from skating fans.)
Let’s wait until 16 games have been played. Jacksonville is doing so well; and without Dennis Northcutt, that team would be nowhere!!
This is a tough call. I just read that Randy has played in something like 85% of all offensive possessions for the Pats this year. Wes Welker has played about 66%, by comparison. When Tom Brady was defending Moss against Ron Jaworski’s idiotic comments he said something like, “Yeah, we are asking a world-class sprinter to run the 50-yard dash, 50 times in a row…”
Furthermore, when Moss isn’t catching the ball, he is totally disrupting the other team’s defense. For these reasons, I think he has to be considered a top MVP candidate.
The NFL is not a morality play and what Randy Moss may or may not have done in Oakland during the 2005 and 2006 seasons is absolutely irrelevant to who the best player in the NFL in 2007 is. Randy Moss makes ordinary quarterbacks look like stars; just ask Daunte Culpepper, an old Randall Cunningham and Jeff George. Now you team him up with a very good quarterback and that guy’s on pace to break records set by guys like Marino and Peyton Manning, and his team is undefeated. Of course Moss is the MVP, it’s silly to say otherwise. But he’s moody and he’s not a pretty boy, so he won’t get the media hype and he won’t win.
JC, I don’t agree with you at all. Awards are for guys who deserve to be honored. I think you do a disservice to the fabric of the game by honoring a guy who cashes paychecks whether he decides to play hard or not.
I don’t care what criteria you try and put on me to make your argument. I am not biting.