Moss: ‘We have our work cut out’
Randy Moss, speaking on a conference call this afternoon, said he believes the Patriots will succeed without Tom Brady, but admitted that it doesn’t make the star quarterback’s season-ending knee injury any easier to accept.
“Well, it’s gonna hurt,” said Moss, who noted that an “upbeat” Brady was in the locker room this afternoon. “We know we actually have to move forward, but that’s hard to say and hard to do when you’re talking about a player and team leader such as Tom. But like we said, ‘The show must go on.’
“With him gone for the season, we players and the coaches have to step it up a notch, go the extra notch, go to the extra level . . . everybody else is going to have to work a little more and give a little more.”
Moss said he realizes the Patriots’ margin for error won’t be what it was a season ago, when Brady threw a record 50 touchdown passes. The 11th-year receiver, who was on the receiving end of a record 23 of those TD passes, knows that much of the additional burden will fall on him, and said he’s up to the challenge.
“The best way I can help is to go out and do my job,” Moss said. “That consists of doing things a little harder, a little quicker, a little faster. I’m not going to let something like this get me down. We still have a lotta, lotta, lotta football to play.
“The best thing I can do is do my job, go out and catch the football, and score touchdowns. That’s what I’m going to continue to do. I’m not going to let anything slow me down.”
First, though, Moss said it’s imperative that he finds “a comfort level” with Brady’s replacement, four-year veteran Matt Cassell, who will be making his first start since high school Sunday against the New York Jets.
“I haven’t really had a chance to work with him or with him working with first team, because I was working with Tom,” said Moss. “He hasn’t experienced much . . . in the preseason, or in regular season when the bullets are live.
“[But] our organization and team is behind Matt Cassel. He’s our quarterback now, and it’s up to him to go out and make things happen.”
There is a general perception that the Patriots will simplify their offense for the young quarterback, whom Moss said has “great upside,” but the receiver said that’s not necessarily the case.
“I’m not sure if this offense can be conservative,” Moss said. “We can score in many ways. We can hit you with the run, with the drop back, with play-action, whatever it may be. I don’t really know what our goal is. I just know we’re going to go out and try to win games. If that consists of changing the way we call plays, or not changing, that’s what it’s going to be. Right now, we have a game plan, and we’re not slowing down.”
When asked if he was impressed with Cassel’s poise Sunday, when he completed 13 of 18 passes for 152 yards in a 17-10 win, Moss said he was proud of the way the entire team responded after Brady’s injury midway through the first quarter.
“In something of that magnitude, it was like taking the helium out of balloon when Tom went down,” Moss said. “It got very quiet [on the field], and we all had the deer-in-the-headlight eyes, like, ‘Is this really happening?’ But we pulled together when Tom limped off and did what we were supposed to do.”
Moss offered a word of warning to those who don’t think the Patriots can continue to win without Brady.
“When you say the New England Patriots football team isn’t going to be what it’s supposed to be, it’s something that is going to motivate us to try to make things happen.”
As to whether the Jets are the new favorites in the AFC East?
“I think the New England Patriots have won the division over the last couple of years, so the New England Patriots are the team to beat,” Moss said. “Tom was big, big, big component to make the offense move, and with him gone, we have to find other ways to make the offense move.
“But we’re the team to beat, and we’ll see what happens.”
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