Those of you who had “one year” as the amount of time Randy Moss’ retirement from the NFL would last, let us all bow down to you: last night, the second-leading touchdown catcher in NFL history agreed to a one-year deal with the 49ers. Terms of the deal weren’t announced, but the pay is probably relatively low for someone of Moss’s stature.
Of course, if so, there’s a reason for that. Not only did Moss not play in 2011, but the last time he did play, in 2010, he didn’t do much. He was passed around from the Patriots to the Vikings to the Titans, and by the end of the year he was hardly getting on the field, if at all. Plus, he’s 35 now. If he’s been taking care of himself, one would expect someone as gifted as Moss could still be effective, but his prime has come and gone.
Still, this is worth the risk for the Niners. Since it’s a one-year deal, they’re not assuming much risk, and if they couldn’t get Vincent Jackson, it’s not like there was someone more talented than Moss sitting around waiting to be signed. Again, that talent – even in 2010, that year when it looked like he’d lost it, he still did this. And it looked like Moss was done once before, with the Raiders – then he went and caught 23 touchdown passes in 2007 with the Pats.
If I were 49er fans, however, I wouldn’t express much beyond cautious optimism. 2007 was a long time ago now in NFL terms. And while there’s hope that Jim Harbaugh might be able to work his superhuman mystical cult leader motivational magic on Moss (Harbaugh could motivate the chair I am sitting in, among many other inanimate objects, to play inspired, physical football), it’s also worth pointing out that when the Niners took a flyer on a veteran receiver last year, it didn’t work out.
There’s a chance this will work out better than the Braylon Edwards experiment. There’s a chance this could work out great – Moss hasn’t put up these career numbers by accident. But after a lost year and then a year off, about all we know about Moss is that we know nothing at all – and that at least at the beginning of the year, it’ll be a more interesting NFL with him than it would be without.