One of the standard plot devices in horror movies, especially the slasher sub-genre, is the villain/monster/exaggerated parody bad guy who will not die. You know, you club him, stab him 50 or 60 times, set him on fire, pump a couple of dozen .45 rounds into his chest, and bury him, and there he is fifteen minutes later, popping up and killing another disposable cast member. You just cannot get this guy to go away.
There are some ideas that are just like that. Someone will always drag the idea up and put it out there - again. Fans of the Dallas Cowboys have to deal with the same kinds of thoughts, ideas that should have long ago died a natural and merciful death, but that keep dragging themselves up and striking terror into the hearts of some of us.
Like the idea floated in the Dallas Morning News (as it has been so often before in a variety of places) that someone involved with the Cowboys may be interested in signing Randy Moss.
The chances of the Cowboys attempting to sign Randy Moss seems highly unlikely, maybe even close to impossible. Receiver is one of the few areas the franchise doesn't need an upgrade and re-signing Laurent Robinson should be a higher priority than adding a receiver that turned 35 on Monday.
But with Jerry Jones running the show you never really know.
Where are my wooden stakes and thermonuclear weapons when I really need them?
More blood curdling details after the jump.
The story came lumbering out of the Stygian darkness when Moss decided to celebrate his 35th birthday by announcing he wanted to mount a comeback.
"I just wanna go to a team and play some football," Moss announced via Ustream.tv, according to ProFootballTalk.com. "Faith, family, and football, that's my M.O., bro. Your boy be back for the upcoming season."
Look, I have no doubt that Moss might have something to offer to some NFL teams. But when the Cowboys are mentioned as a possible destination, I just think "This is so wrong on so many levels".
The Cowboys have a youth movement going on. Dallas made a pretty definitive statement when it cut Marc Colombo and Leonard Davis to start the 2011 season. The team went with younger players and an eye towards the future, even at the risk (which to a certain extent was realized) of having growing pains with the young 'uns. While there are some conceivable scenarios where signing an aging veteran might help with certain problems (like maybe center), wide receiver just doesn't fit as one of those categories. Miles Austin and Dez Bryant should have years ahead of them, and I would much rather see the team put some effort into resigning Laurent Robinson than bringing Moss on board. Even if the team should lose Robinson to another team, there are still many other options at wide receiver available in free agency (which should also work in the team's favor in keeping LR). And there are some promising young guys like Raymond Radway and Andre Holmes that provide a little hope for depth.
Haven't we been down this road before? Terrell Owens, another player of incredible talent who wants to get back into the NFL, was once brought into Dallas as a quick fix. He gave some stellar production - for a while, Then the same ol' same ol' reared its head. Many had built up hopes that at last he was going to be different, and had them dashed. Randy Moss has his own history, as the story about his announcement mentioned.
A prospective employer would not only get one of the top deep threats in NFL history, but one with a history of controversy.
While with the Vikings, Moss bumped a traffic cop in downtown Minneapolis, squirted a referee with a water bottle during a game, left the field early in a game against Washington and berated a caterer at team headquarters.
There is an ongoing debate about just what fits the Jason Garrett definition of a Right Kind of Guy, but I don't think having a tantrum and storming off the field or getting into water fights with the zebras would qualify. And with his long standing and well-publicized resentment about being passed over in the draft by Dallas, the chance for some kind of distraction developing just seems to be way too big. Besides, the whole idea of the quick fix with a splashy signing just does not seem to be part of the Dallas modus operandi anymore. It's all about value to the team, and I just don't see any here.
The wheels could go at any minute. He is thirty-five. Even if he has most of his speed now, that is no guarantee he will be able to keep his performance up for a full season. And his recovery time from injury is likely to be getting worse. Plus the Cowboys have had some bad luck with older players lately (I'm thinking Keith Brooking in particular).
Jerry Jones does not make these decisions in a vacuum. Speaking of erroneous ideas that won't go away, the assumption in the DMN article is clearly that Jerry is going have a sudden burst of mental flatulence and hire Moss, perhaps spurred by his acknowledgement that it was a mistake to pass him over in the draft. There has been a lot of discussion of that here, and the evidence seems to be overwhelming that Jerry does not call the shots by himself, and is adhering to his statements that Jason Garrett has the final word on personnel. Stephen Jones is also a player, and everything I have been able to find in the past year or so that talks about the way players are signed and drafted indicates that there is a consensus process, where Jerry can and has been outvoted by the others involved. This includes input from assistant coaches and the scouting staff where applicable, and I just have a hard time imagining a majority of the voices involved speaking in favor of signing Moss. I know that there are still many people out there who think Jerry is running the Cowboys as a fiefdom and making these kinds of decisions on a whim, but I think they take too much pleasure from their Jerry hate to accept the evidence to the contrary.
I attribute the speculation about Dallas possibly being interested in Moss as partly a function of trying to find something to write about during the off season (which I am also doing, I suppose), partly a play to find something to stir up some interest (guilty there, too), and a bit of falling back on memes that don't really hold water anymore about the Cowboys in general and Jerry Jones in particular (that is one place I hope I am fighting the good fight). But no matter where it came from, I say this is a bad idea. Epically, ridiculously bad. Randy can go somewhere else in the NFL, but I do not want to see him anywhere near Valley Ranch.