The Bears didn’t take Randy Moss. Now they have to chase him along with the rest of the Minnesota Vikings, who are ecstatic about adding the troubled but talented wide receiver.
The Bears didn’t trade for the defensive players they liked. Instead they watched the Green Bay Packers trade up and happily land the first defensive player selected in the NFC Central Division.
Football’s most competitive division made the biggest splash in Saturday’s NFL draft, leaving the last-place Bears with as many challenges as they had going in.
Unable to get the high price they wanted for Penn State running back Curtis Enis, the rebuilding Bears stuck with a philosophy of “best available athlete” and the first day of the draft fell without many surprises except for the slide of Moss, the “most intriguing athlete.”
Only the Packers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers made trades in a quiet first round that started when quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Ryan Leaf went 1-2 as expected to Indianapolis and San Diego.
When Minnesota took Marshall’s Moss at the 21st pick, coach Dave Wannstedt said defensive coordinator Bob Slowik suggested the Bears draft a safety. The Bears did that in the second round with Washington’s Tony Parrish.
“We have no doubts about Randy Moss,” said Vikings coach Dennis Green, giddy with possibilities. “What we think is this: Randy Moss lining up with Cris Carter and Jake Reed outside and Robert Smith in the backfield and (tight end) Andrew Glover going down the middle will give us the most potent offense in the National Football League.”
The Packers, desperate to shore up a defensive front exploited in their Super Bowl loss to Denver, jumped ahead of rivals Detroit, Minnesota and Tampa Bay by trading their first- and second-round picks (29 and 60) for Miami’s first (19).
It was a cheap price and the payoff stunned Packers General Manager Ron Wolf, who landed North Carolina defensive lineman Vonnie Holliday, a projected top-10 player on many boards.
“We were looking at (UCLA safety) Shaun Williams and never expected the guy we took to be there,” Wolf said. “Everybody says that, but it’s the honest truth. We’re just delighted. We had to add someone to the defensive unit.”
The Buccaneers traded out of the first round when Oakland offered both their second-round picks for the 23rd spot. Then the Bucs landed one of the best athletes in the entire draft in the second round, Florida receiver Jacquez Green. He’s little (5 feet 9 inches, 175 pounds), but last year the Bucs picked rookie of the year Warrick Dunn of similar size.
With three picks in a deep second round, the Bucs moved up with Atlanta to take USC defensive back Brian Kelly, another first-round projection. Coach Tony Dungy said he had to get “somebody to cover Randy Moss.”
The Bears considered Moss, but called Enis “head and shoulders above” anybody else on their board. Moss slid because he was rejected by Notre Dame following a fight with a high school classmate and kicked out of Florida State and jailed on a marijuana charge while on probation.
“We didn’t expect him to fall past Dallas (No. 8),” said Bus Cook, Moss’ agent. “The past just kept haunting Randy and it haunted the teams.”
“This is old, old news. He’s a great player who made mistakes in the past. He was 18 or 19,” Green said. “He’s still a 21-year-old young man.”
“Coach Green took a lot of heat for this, but he just caught a steal,” Moss said.
Marshall coach Bob Pruett said Moss missed no practices and had no problems in two years at the school. He had warned NFL teams not to pass him up.
“The problem they think they might have by taking him (won’t) be anything like what they are going to have guarding him,” Pruett said.
The Vikings had an inside view of Moss from his older brother, Eric, a 325-pound tackle from Ohio State who signed with Minnesota as a free agent late last season. They plan to room together.
Moss ducked out of a pre-arranged press conference in Charleston, W.Va., apparently too upset to face his fate.
“He’s not real good with the media,” Pruett said. “But I wouldn’t be either if they talked about me like they talk about him all the time.”
