Moss to Titans? Bad move.

I have a complaint to lodge. This was supposed to be my easy semester, my last one, 12 credits, including one class that should be an easy A. Instead, I get saddled with the last two weeks, where I never got more than five hours of sleep and had to do something like 10 out-of-class assignments.

But it’s cool. I’ve got four more over the next week, then I’m home-free till Thanksgiving.

As usual, I have a reason for telling this: I’m not simply putting my picks up on Sunday morning, with little description to go with them, for no reason. Getting a couple hours extra sleep on a weekend is just that valuable to me right now.

But since I got out of work an hour early tonight and since some earth-shattering (only if you’re a Titans fan, I guess) news just broke, I thought I’d take the time to reintroduce myself to the blogosphere.

For those who haven’t heard, Randy Moss was claimed off waivers … by the Tennessee Titans. On the outset, this looks like a great deal. The Titans now have a legitimate, proven deep threat, which they’ve lacked since Kevin Dyson. They’ve also gotten a great replacement for the injured Kenny Britt. Moss has a place with a proven, veteran quarterback, as well as a veteran, level-headed coach. The Titans are legitimate playoff contenders, which pretty much ensures that Moss will give most of his effort … most of the time, at least.

So with all these benefits, what could possibly be wrong with this deal? Only everything else.

Randy Moss is like one of the massive, exotic animals you go to the zoo to see. He’s fascinating to watch, gorgeous in a way, and, as long as he’s viewed from afar or from behind some protective casing, you could watch him all day. But the second he gets closer to you, you realize just how terrifying he truly is.

I don’t love Randy Moss the person, and I doubt many fans who know his personality do. But I do love the football field Moss. He’s entertaining and he’s full of surprises, but mostly, he’s incredible. I only ever saw Jerry Rice in his waning days, so I have no comparison to Moss’ talent. All I can say is, when he wants to, he seems completely untouchable.

And when he’s playing for a team you don’t care about, that’s great. You can ignore his off-the-field rants and the fact that he just sometimes turns it off in the middle of games. You can’t do that when he comes to your team.

Moss is poison personified. Childress may be vilified for releasing Moss in the manner he did, and I don’t agree with it, but I do understand it. Moss wasn’t being productive, and he was already creating problems in the locker room. If action wasn’t taken immediately, there was a chance the Vikings would be worse than they already were. Childress cut his losses, assumed the risk and did what needed to be done.

So it’ll be different with the Titans right? Like I mentioned earlier, he’s got all kinds of reasons to be happy, so why won’t he play nice? All it takes is one thing.

The Titans are a good, borderline great, team this year, and they have the league’s best offense. It’s the best offense, not because it’s the most talented (although Chris Johnson certainly helps), but because the team meshes. Johnson aside, there are no superstars, and even Johnson seems to understand the team aspect.

That being said, Moss cannot be the No. 1 receiver for the rest of the year. Granted, it’s hard to imagine a better way to replace your best receiver for a few weeks than with the greatest receiver this generation, but this can’t end well.

Either Moss performances like he has the potential to and gets the starting job – which means Britt comes back, forced into the No. 2 slot, upsetting him and completely screwing up the obvious Vince Young-to-Kenny Britt connection that’s developed – or, regardless of his performance, Moss is demoted to No. 2 upon Britt’s return, which means Tennessee has to deal with whiny, sulky Moss, who doesn’t try but still gets paid $200,000 a game.

I don’t like either scenario.

Plus, remember what I said about poison? New England was able to mask this because of Belichick’s stance that no player is great than the team and because of personalities, like Tom Brady’s, that were so overwhelmingly powerful, Moss simply had to fall in line.

Tennessee does not have this. Kevin Mawae was forced into retirement over the offseason, Keith Bulluck was discarded and Kerry Collins is a back-up. Collins is a great, mature individual, but there is no way Moss takes his orders from a guy who won’t even start most of the season.

Jeff Fisher can’t be the answer, either. He can only hold so much sway over the players, and unlike fellow teammates, he can’t be around Moss all the time to manage him.

The Titans are a young team, focused primarily on rebuilding, with plenty of impressionable players, especially at the wide receiver position, and Moss is the absolute worst role model to bring in for these guys. This gives Moss the ability to absolutely shred the locker room if he wants, something he will do if he doesn’t get his way.

The only way the Moss signing can work out favorably for the Titans is as an extremely short-term solution. Like I said before, there’s no better way to replace an injured receiver than by signing the best receiver of the generation. It’s also reasonable to assume that Moss will give everything he has during his initial games with the Titans, if for no more reason than to encourage a team to sign him next season – or in 2012, pending a lockout.

I normally would never condone abusing a player’s talents like this, but if the Titans are able to get a productive three or four games out of Moss, then waive him before he’s able to do too much damage to the team’s psyche, there’s potential for this to be a truly brilliant move on the part of the Titans’ organization. It would be a costly one (close to $1.5 million for only four games) but worth it if it means they can keep up their torrid streak of 28 points per game.

Put simply, though, the Titans have some ‘splainin’ to do. This is not a move typical of the Jeff Fisher dynasty, and it provides absolutely no long-term advantages. So why run this risk, Tennessee?

I’d love to hear your guys thoughts/comments.

With his announcement, Favre shocks ... no one!

Starting this blog – and not updating it, as you can probably tell – has shown me something: I suck at blogging. It’s not for lack of trying; I’ve actually sat down to write something at least five or six times since I first posted. It’s that I really can’t keep a serious train of thought for more than a few hundred words.

But I’m going to try here, so let’s talk about something comforting like … Brett Favre!

OK, that’s not comforting in the slightest, but it is something I think I can go on for ages about.

If you haven’t heard, Mr. Favre (I feel I owe him this title, because anyone who’s old enough to retire three times surely commands a great amount of respect.) has decided to return to the NFL. Again. For the third time.

He said he’s “doing it for the guys.” He’s doing them a favor. Not because he gets $16.5 million and continues a record starting streak that could eclipse 300 this year. It’s really not about him, or so he says.

I think we can all say back to Favre, in unison, that that’s just bull. I truly believe Favre meant it the first time he retired. I also think he realized what kind of gold mine he had stumbled upon when he stirred up rumors that he wanted to return and realized that people would pay him millions both to go away and to play for an opposing team.

Now? Well, now he’s just milking it until he’s too banged up and sore to milk anymore. And right now, his particular Heifer of choice is Brad Childress. If it’s not bad enough that Favre is taking advantage of the fans, the media and his teammates, he’s taking advantage of one of his best friends.

I don’t pretend to like Childress, and I honestly think he’s the reason that Adrian Peterson hasn’t yet eclipsed 2,000 yards, but I will admit he is a truly stand-up guy. And Favre is taking him for a ride. Childress isn’t going to put his foot down on the situation because Favre is a close friend, he will win you games that Sage Rosenfels and Tavaris Jackson cannot and because he’s not going to do that to a guy he knows.

Favre knows this, just as surely as he knew he could use the Jets’ turmoil last year to come out, if not squeaky clean, at least avoiding looking like a BP oil spill and still being able to sign with another team.

For those of you that don’t remember, it was leaked – more likely quietly whispered by Favre himself – that No. 4 played with an injured throwing arm for most of the second half of the Jets’ 2008 season. Looking at the performance of the team, it’s really not surprising at all. Favre has since stated, though, that he would have been more than willing to go injured reserve, but Eric Mangini refused to place him on IR.

Favre said this, of course, after Mangini had been fired, after the Jets were embroiled in numerous other issues and after his shoulder had completely healed. Favre, go on IR and risk snapping his consecutive starts streak? I was, and still am, extremely disappointed with the number of media outlets who bought this. That’s baloney. Favre knows it, I know it and you should too.

Now, he’s coming out with the whole I-was-really-going-to-retire-but-I-owe-these-guys-a-favor story. Again, I have to call bull. The man had the best statistical season of his career last year. His team was a shoo-in for the Super Bowl until his costly game-losing error. He was offered $16.5 million, with the acceptance that he was going to miss all of the spring and summer and probably much of the preseason. Of course he was coming back; now he just has a story to spin so he doesn’t seem quite so dastardly (Sorry, I’ve always really wanted to use that word in a sentence.).

I used to love Favre. The first NFL game I can remember watching in its entirety was Green Bay against Carolina in the 1997 NFC Championship Game. His I’m-going-to-fit-it-through-that-hole-and-logic-be-d***ed mentality helped me fall in love with the game.

But what’s left of the formerly glorious green-and-yellow No. 4 is a bloated and now-purple-and-yellow No. 4 that’s either too prideful or too selfish to realize what he’s doing to everyone else around him. Either way, it’s childish and it doesn’t befit a man that holds a legitimate claim as the greatest quarterback of all time.

I, along with millions of other NFL fans, grew up with Brett Favre. It’s just a shame that, during that time, he didn’t grow up with us.