No Mas, No Moss » Brats & Beer

April 30, 2007
posted under: NFL Draft, Packers, Randy Moss

Butch from the blog From The Cheap Seats left a question here today about the Randy Moss trade that didn’t happen, and rather than bury my answer in the comments I thought I’d go ahead and post on it.

To be honest, I was relieved that the Patriots and Bill Belichek will have the task of figuring out the Randy Ratio this year and not the Packers and Mike McCarthy. I realize this is kind of stupid and short sighted, because with Brett Favre heaving the ball down the field I’m sure Moss would have scored a lot of touchdowns, and that would have meant a lot of wins for the Packers. But I just don’t think I could bring myself to root for the guy.

I suppose if the trade would have happened, I could have resolved to keep silent each time Moss scored, waiting instead to cheer after the PAT but that would seem rather silly and petty. Yet, that’s probably what I would have done. I spent too many years hating Moss, it would have been too awkward a situation to get around, so I am kind of glad the possibility of Moss wearing Green & Gold is past us.

There is a draft day trade that didn’t happen that I am a little miffed about, though. Reading Peter King’s column today at SI.com about Cleveland’s wheeling and dealing for Brady Quinn, it turns out the Browns called Ted Thompson about trading for Green Bay’s #16 pick, but TT turned the deal down. According to the piece:

Savage got a nibble from Green Bay at 16. Cleveland offered its first-round pick in 2008, and offered to flip picks with the Packers in rounds two, three and four. “I thought it was going to work,” Savage said. “But they thought about it, called back and said no.”

Now I’m no guru when it comes to measuring the relative values of picks and I’m sure the math didn’t add up right for TT, so I can respect that, but imagine how different the draft would have turned out if Green Bay had done the deal. The Packers would have moved up in the second and maybe could have gotten tight end Zach Miller at fair value or wide receiver Dwayne Jarrett, or maybe thought twice about drafting a running back who had both shoulders operated on. Plus Green Bay would have had an extra first round pick next year.

But now I’m playing shoulda, woulda, coulda. It’s all water under the bridge at this point and the Packers are going to have to find a way to make all this work come August and September. I’m not sure, but that might turn out to be an easier task than keeping Randy Moss happy and engaged.