“[Vikings head coach Brad] Childress told the team in meeting they waived Moss as Moss did not go back with the team to Minnesota,” Lombardi reported. “Moss was not in the meeting.”
The Vikings traded for Moss at the beginning of October, sending a third-round pick to New England in exchange for Moss and a seventh-round pick.
In four games with the Vikings, Moss caught 13 passes for 174 yards and two touchdowns. In the four games with New England prior to the trade, he caught just nine passes for 139 yards but did have three touchdowns.
On Sunday, after the Patriots had beaten the Vikings 28-18 and Moss had just one catch for eight yards, the wide receiver conducted as bizarre a postgame news conference as humanly possible. He called out the Vikings and the coaching staff while heaping tremendous praise on the Patriots.
“I tried to prepare, tried to talk to the coaches and players about how this game was going to be played, a couple tendencies here and a couple tendencies there,” Moss said of his attempts to help the Vikings beat the Patriots. “But the bad part about it, you have six days to prepare for a team and on the seventh day, that’s Sunday, meaning today, I guess they come over to me and say, ‘Dang, Moss, you were right about a couple plays and a couple schemes that they were going to run.’
“It hurts as a player that you put a lot of hard work in all week, and toward the end of the week, Sunday, when you get on the field, that is when they acknowledge the hard work you have put in all week. So that is a disappointment,” Moss added.
Moss also questioned Childress’ decision to go for a touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line before halftime.
“I wish we could have had that three [points] at the end of the half,” he said. “Maybe it could have been different. Maybe not.”
Another red flag was raised during the game, when Brandon Meriweather interfered with Moss on what would have been a surefire touchdown. Though Moss drew the penalty, it appeared he could have made an effort to catch the ball but instead he let it fall harmlessly to the turf. Three plays later, Brett Favre was knocked out of the game.
If the report is indeed true, teams will be able to sign Moss in order of the worst record to the best record in the league. That puts the Bills, Panthers, Cowboys, Broncos, 49ers, Browns, Bengals, Lions and Chargers as the teams with the first chance to sign him.
The Patriots, with an NFL-best 6-1 record, would only have a chance to re-sign Moss if all other 31 teams passed on their chance. Given that he’s now burned through two teams in the matter of a month, teams will likely be very hesitant to add a player like Moss at this point in the season. It’s not out of the question that the Patriots take that gamble, as they have an intimate knowledge of Moss from his three-plus seasons in New England.
