Catch Us if You Can

Moss and Owens Enjoy Career Rebirths on NFL's Top Teams

Randy Moss, left, and Terrell Owens, the two flashiest wide receivers of their time, will always be compared to each other and they're having concurrent career revivals. (Getty Images)

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- After he had four touchdown catches, all in the first half, in another dominating victory for the New England Patriots on Sunday night, Randy Moss was asked if he'd noticed that Terrell Owens had caught four touchdown passes for the Dallas Cowboys earlier in the day against the Washington Redskins.

"Yeah," Moss said, "I saw the real 81."

They will be remembered for their bouts of petulance as well as their pass-catching brilliance, but Moss and Owens have stifled their diva tendencies and controversial natures to put up huge receiving numbers and push their teams to the forefront of the Super Bowl chase. And they seem to be pushing each other, even if they refuse to admit it.

"I don't really get into that," said Moss, who was dubbed the "other" No. 81 by Owens before the Patriots and Cowboys met earlier this season. "I have a job to do. That's to go out and block and catch balls. To try and duplicate something another receiver did isn't my game. I don't try to do that."

Owens said a week earlier: "We're not worried about anybody else. We have to go out and execute against the team we're playing."

But the two flashiest wide receivers of their time will always be compared to each other. This season, they're having concurrent career revivals.

Moss no longer is the seemingly uninterested, underachieving player that he was the previous three seasons, his final one in Minnesota and his two with the Oakland Raiders. Some questioned whether he'd fit in when the Patriots traded for him during NFL draft weekend last spring. But he's been a solid locker room citizen. He seems to be giving maximum effort at all times, and his teammates appear to like and respect him.

Most important, he again is the player he was in his early days with the Vikings, a receiver so big and swift and gifted that defensive backs simply cannot cover him and his quarterback merely can lob the ball in his general direction and end up with a game-changing play. Moss leads the league with his 1,052 receiving yards and 16 touchdown catches. He's on pace to finish with 1,683 receiving yards, which would be a career best, and 26 touchdown catches, which would break Jerry Rice's single-season NFL record of 22 set with the San Francisco 49ers in 1987.

Moss even talks like a typical Patriots player these days. After Sunday night's 56-10 triumph over the Buffalo Bills, Moss gushed during an on-field interview with NBC about living a dream. Later, as reporters surrounded his locker in the tiny visitor's dressing area, he called Patriots Coach Bill Belichick "a guy you want to play for."

He also said: "I've never been a fan of records. I learned at a young age that records were meant to be broken. I've never lived on records or seeing my name in the record book. I think we have a goal, and that goal is to still be playing at the end of January."

Owens, too, seems to be contented. He outlasted former Cowboys coach Bill Parcells in Dallas and is thriving in the atmosphere created by low-key coach Wade Phillips and offensive coordinator Jason Garrett. Owens's numbers aren't quite as staggering as Moss's. He has 1,028 receiving yards and 12 touchdown catches. But he is on a serious roll, with four straight 100-yard receiving games (and twice topping 170 yards during that stretch). It's almost enough to make one forget the problems he's had coexisting with coaches and quarterbacks.

So the question is: Who would you rather have, baggage and all? An informal survey of several front office talent evaluators around the league over the past couple of days resulted in a split decision. No one contacted was willing to offer an opinion for public consumption. Most rated the talent levels about equal. Some pointed out that Owens has never been accused of failing to play hard, as many observers alleged when Moss was in Oakland. Others said that Moss has never torn apart a team, as many believe Owens did when he was so publicly unhappy with his contract with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005.

The bottom-line conclusion was perhaps best articulated by one AFC executive who said, "If they're not creating any problems and they're playing like this, you'd gladly take either one."