Moss Is Our Collective Loss

I'd like to think that I'm not your normal Green Bay Packers fan. Sure, I pride myself on knowing the sport well, but when something like the debacle in Lambeau yesterday comes down the pike, I try to not to take it too personally. For those of you that don't care about the NFL or professional sports, let's just say the Pack lost an important game to end their season. But for those of you that care about such things, this one was the biggest stinkbomb in a fusillade of such season-enders since Favre got his one (and probably only) ring in '97. Does it matter? In Wisconsin and with Packer Nation folks everywhere, overwhelmingly. Otherwise, assuredly not much. Nonetheless, one aspect of yesterday's performance will live on, quite unfortunately, for all sports fans and especially those that care about the NFL. Randy Moss insulted all of us, hurt the game by escalating the insults brash players can get away with, and pretty much guaranteed that he'll never have a legitimate career after football.

All the networks are running away from re-broadcasts of this footage, which just solidifies how violence is perfectly fine for ad nauseum play (remember the Indiana Pacers taking on the entire crowd in Detroit rather recently?) but the slightest suggestion of nudity cannot be tolerated in the Bush Century (look to this fake mooning or the fake towel drop by Nicollete Sheridan on MNF earlier this fall). I've got this game saved on my TiVo with both the actual footage and his even-more tone-deaf arrogance in being interviewed by Chris Meyer of FOX on the field after the game. When Randy Moss gets his due, I'll be sure to fire that footage up again. I haven't yet found a good internet video log link. Yet. Check back on this one.

Now, my point. If the Boston Red Sox went to Yankee Stadium and Curt Schilling fake-mooned home plate after throwing the final pitch in a complete-game shut-out, the Five Boroughs would be littered with Red Sox heads on pikes. Home field is not always sacred, but you still need to think about getting to the team bus once the TV crews have packed up their gear. Such extreme audacity simply denegrates the entire exercise of sports in this country. Were the fans shouting despicable things at Moss on the sideline during the game? Yes, I would expect that to be so having scrutinized his ridiculous reactions in the coverage during the game ("flipping the bird" inside a glove, pointing at the "moth**fu***** scoreboard," accompanied by his easily lip-readable televised taunts). But Lambeau, in the sense of being a surly crowd, is a world away from the four-letter-flurries coating the field in Yankee Stadium or, much less prestigiously, in NBA arenas throughout the country. What sort of noise do you think the Vikings will now endure in Philly next weekend and everywhere thereafter next season and beyond? Or, more importantly, how much of that tasteless uptick throughout the League will be directly due to Randy Moss? It's gonna be brutal. And that hurts the entire panoply of "Sport" today. I call it the Deion Rule - when one player ups the ante to allow for more disgusting self-focus, the entire game suffers, there's certainly no going back to a simpler time before such displays, yet we as fans are meant to stomach this as just part of the post-modern state of such public events. Is Randy Moss the only example of this phenomenon? Of course not (as my Rule name signifies, the many-years-old example of Deion Sanders' antics pushed the envelope outward beyond repair). But to quote the ridiculous NYGiants' fan meathead who lives across the street from me and often comes out on his balcony to smoke cigarettes and see if I'm within "Yo!"-range for a chat, "we should put Moss, T.O., Keyshawn and the bunch of 'em in a bag and throw it in the river." I'm completely serious - he yelled that at me last night from across the street. My entirely-freaked-out, anti-social, old-hippie-upstairs-neighbor simply has to be walking on eggshells today.

But that's a story for another day. Thanks for reading. Flip me a comment if you've got a thought or two.