Vikings are on a roll with Moss

Even in the age of free agency and unfettered player movement, it is rare enough that one man can transform an also-ran into an instant contender, but Randy Moss would appear to have done just that.

The wonderfully-talented Minnesota wide receiver caught five passes for 190 yards and two touchdowns on Monday night as the Vikings handed two-time defending NFC champions Green Bay a 37-24 drubbing before the Packers' home crowd.

If the score and the fact that it was the Packers' first loss in 25 games at Lambeau Field weren't embarrassing enough, the Green Bay front office also had to contend with the knowledge that they could have had Moss for themselves.

But then, so could have the 20 other National Football League teams who elected to look the other way and let him slip to the Vikings back in April.

By acclamation Randy Moss was among the four best college players available in this year's NFL draft. A 6 ft 4 in leaper possessed of uncommon speed (he clocked 4.2 seconds in the 40-yard dash) and agility, he had scored 25 touchdowns for West Virginia's Marshall University last year, but on Draft Day last spring he was the guy nobody wanted.

One NFL general manager after another tried to envision how Moss would look in the uniform of his team, but they all kept coming up with the same fuzzy image: a guy wearing convict's stripes.

Two weeks before the April draft, I was going over the list of available talent with Bobby Grier, the New England Patriots' vice president in charge of player personnel. When Moss's name came up, Grier replied, succinctly: "We have no interest in drafting Randy Moss, even if he is available when our turn comes."

Other teams similarly took themselves out of the picture even before the draft, but when Moss tumbled all the way to 21st, even the experts were shocked.

Moss's past is admittedly, to say the least, chequered. He had won and then lost scholarships to two schools, Notre Dame and Florida State, before he ever set foot on the field for either, and while he wasn't the only one of this year's crop of collegians to have run foul of the law, he was one of the very few who had actually served time.

In high school he was arrested for, and had pleaded guilty to, stomping a fellow student (Moss claims the incident was sparked by a racial epithet), which prompted Notre Dame to withdraw its scholarship offer.

At Florida State, he tested positive for marijuana, which not only got him kicked off the football team there, but represented a violation of his probation for the earlier incident and got him two months in the sneezer.

At Marshall, he was arrested on a charge of domestic battery against the mother of his two children.

And when it came time to report for February's scouting combine in Indianapolis, where each year's potential crop of draftees are measured and evaluated, Moss abruptly announced his unavailability.

"You create suspicions," said New Orleans coach Mike Ditka at the time. English translation: Moss would have been drug-tested in Indianapolis.

Still, even given his imposing rap sheet, it is remarkable how far Moss's fortunes fell on draft day. While the pay scale is decidedly arbitrary, a reasonable calculation is that the difference between being the top-five pick most people assumed he would be, and the four-year, $4.5 million contract he eventually signed with the Vikings, may have cost him as much as $10 million.

Moss vowed to take out the slight on Minnesota opponents. "Some of those teams," he said before the season, "we'll be playing them."

He appears to be making good on the threat.

Inevitably, some NFL coach was going to decide he was the guy who could rehabilitate Randy Moss, and it turned out to be Dennis Green. Although the Vikings already had two topflight receivers in veterans Cris Carter and Jake Reed, Green recognised that Moss might be the ingredient that could transform his team from one which perennially reached the play-offs (but never went far) into a bona fide Super Bowl contender.

It didn't hurt that Moss's brother Eric was already a member of the Vikings (an offensive guard, Eric is currently on the injured list), but Green ensured a smooth transition by phoning Carter before he actually pulled the trigger.

A decade earlier, Carter had been treated for cocaine abuse, and had come out of college with a, um, cloud over his head. Now an ordained minister, Carter has, through determination and hard work, managed to overcome his past to become one of the NFL's best receivers, potentially a future Hall of Famer.

Carter warned Green not to get his hopes up, that he doubted Moss would be available by the 21st pick, but that if he was, "then go for it!"

Matters fell into place in an even better manner than Green could have imagined. Once drafted, Moss and Carter not only regularly conversed on the telephone, but Moss travelled to Carter's Florida home so they could work out together over the off-season. With Carter, 10 years Moss's senior, hovering about him like a protective angel, the rookie has thus far been a model citizen.

Once again Green's prescience has been rewarded. Last season he stockpiled several serviceable but undistinguished running backs and then brought them to the play-offs after starter Robert Smith was injured. He signed quarterback Brad Johnson to a huge contract extension, but made sure he hung on to veteran Randall Cunningham. With Johnson watching from the sidelines with a broken foot, Cunningham, the onetime Philadelphia star, threw for 442 yards against the Packers.

And although he already had one of the league's best pass-catching tandems at his disposal, Denny Green was the guy who was willing to take the gamble on Randy Moss.

Five games into the season, the Vikings are the NFC's only unbeaten team, thanks in no small part to Moss's 22 receptions for 463 yards and six touchdowns. "I just believe," said Carter, "there's something special about him." Remarkably, Monday night's performance could have been even better: Moss had one 77-yard touchdown pass from Cunningham called back by a team-mate's penalty, and had another potential score literally slip through his hands in the end zone.

"I'm not surprised by the success I've had so far," said Moss after Monday night's game, but he realises he remains a marked man.

"There are a lot of people who want me to fail because they didn't draft me," he said, "and there are going to be others who want to see me fail just because of what I'm going to do to their teams this year."