The Randy Moss Route-Running Discussion: What Are We Doing?

Like clockwork, a new debate has emerged regarding all-time great receiver Randy Moss. Could he actually run routes? According to the detractors, the fourth-leading receiver in history could not.

Photo by Damian Strohmeyer /Sports Illustrated via Getty Images

Earlier this morning, Miami Dolphins receiver coach – and former teammate of legendary receiver Randy Moss – was asked about Tyreek Hill, presumably in comparison to Moss. It’s a natural question for a Dolphins reporter to ask; Hill is on pace to break a single-season receiving record and currently ranks fourth (minimum: ten games) in single-season receiving yards per game, which is more than Moss ever put together.

Elon really doesn’t want Substack to embed tweets. Here’s a video courtesy Omar Kelly.

Randy is probably the best deep ball receiver ever in the game. But Tyreek can run it all. He can run the whole route tree. He can run choice routes, he can run lookie. He can take the top off. He can... his ball skills, coming in and out of breaks. Name a route you don't like him on. I just can't think of one. And to me that's what separates him in that regard and just his mindset and the way he approaches every single day and every single game. It's very impressive. He's got the mentality along with all those things, which is the most important part, that's probably where he separates himself the most.

In all honesty, Welker was put into a tough spot with the question and he defaulted to promoting the player he coached and has an obligation to over an old teammate.

It’s easy to take this kind of thing with a grain of salt – if Welker thinks he can improve one of his players, or at least avoid souring a relationship with them, then he’ll prioritize that.

It’s unlikely that these are all of Welker’s true thoughts on the matter, but for the purpose of breaking down the discourse, they might as well be. And in those words, Welker clearly highlighted Hill’s capabilities as a route runner to distinguish him from Moss.

Whether or not it was fair to Welker to hold him to those words, they did (re)open up a debate on who Randy Moss was as a receiver. Familiar arguments about his legacy as a receiver trickled through social media, including arguments that Moss didn’t effectively run a full route tree, that he didn’t catch passes over the middle, that he wasn’t proficient in the short game, that he was lazy on his routes and so on.

How Do We Know Randy Moss?

In many ways, these kinds of arguments betray how we experience players from the past. Questions pop up like “how many highlights are there of Randy Moss going over the middle of the field and taking hits? How many highlights are there of Randy Moss taking a slant to the house?” as if the lack of a highlight reel featuring these kinds of plays demonstrates the point.

The problem, of course, is that these are colored by the selections of people who put together highlight reels. When putting together a ten-minute highlight reel of a star receiver, there’s only so much time you can budget for routine catches. If someone has to choose between a seven-yard catch that ends in a crunching tackle or a 40-yard touchdown bomb, why would they ever choose the seven-yard catch? It’s a highlight reel. You put in the highlights.

That problem is particularly prescient for Moss, whose cavalcade of touchdowns is too long to put into one highlight reel. In fact, there is a highlight reel of just his 40-yard touchdowns that lasts nearly ten minutes by itself.

This is perhaps why we don’t remember all the times Moss ran a 13-yard square-ins and had to hold on to the ball as three defenders closed in on him.

There, of course, is a second selection bias in play and it’s best demonstrated by example. If the Buffalo Bills acquired a receiver who was equally great at every route – where there was an assurance that they would win 80 percent of their routes, no matter the route, against single coverage – why wouldn’t the Bills have Josh Allen huck it deep to that player on every single possible play they get a favorable look?

It doesn’t make sense to make receivers run less valuable routes if they can be just as successful on more valuable routes. The idea that Moss was primarily a deep-ball merchant could be the product of smart play selection from his offensive coordinators.

There is also the issue of narrative transposition. I’m not confident that’s an actual phrase but that’s the best description I can think of for identifying a personality trait built off of a media narrative for a public figure and transposing an estimate for how that personality trait would translate into a skill set. For Moss, that means the notion that he was a selfish teammate or a diva means that it is natural to assume he would take routes off or refuse to go over the middle.

These understandings of Moss are not wholly fictions, but neither are they accurate. Many are built off of behavior or quotes from Moss when he was 20 years old – or younger. Judging a 35-year-old Moss for behavior 15 years prior is suspect at best.

Some of those events have also been recharacterized many years after the fact or, when described once more, no longer seem like moral failings. Moss losing his athletic scholarship to Notre Dame because he beat up an alleged racist isn’t really as much of an issue in 2023 as it was in 1998. Violating marijuana rules also don’t seem that big of a deal.

These aren’t positives for most people, but they aren’t pearl-clutchers, either. Moss declined to work out at the NFL Combine. At the time, the discussion about his decision to move on was seen as arrogance – he knew he was going to be drafted by the Dallas Cowboys and he didn’t want to compete in the workouts on the same timeline as other prospects, instead forcing NFL scouts to attend the Marshall Pro Day.

It turns out that Moss missed the workouts because of an emergency surgery on six of his teeth. That doesn’t excuse an apparent missed meeting with Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh at the combine or some of his other pre-draft behavior.

Those missed workouts ended up contributing to the mystery of Moss.

Randy Moss and the Allure of Athleticism

People tend to assume that because Moss was the most athletic player on the field any time he stepped on to it, that that’s how he won. While it was an obviously critical element of his game and the defining trait for Moss, there are those who argue this is essentially his only winning trait.

This is, of course, absurd. There have been many natural athletes, gifted even beyond their peers in the NFL, who fizzled out.

What separates Moss from Olympians like Marquise Goodwin, Jeff Demps, James Jett, Michael Bates, Larry Burton, Ron Brown or Sam Graddy? What, athletically, separates Moss from a player like Justin Hunter or Stephen Hill? Joe Webb? Why did Herschel Walker fail in the NFL while Moss succeeded?

The answer, obviously, is skill. In this case, “skill” is a broad term, encompassing both the technical aspects of receiving as well as the skill to pick up a playbook, understand an offense and execute what’s asked of you in the confines of an NFL play.