For anyone under the impression star player recruitment began with LeBron James and the NBA, Tom Brady and Randy Moss have a 15-year-old secret to reveal.
Before Brady and Moss connected for 23 touchdowns and nearly 1,500 yards in 2007 — as the team went undefeated before losing to the Giants in the Super Bowl — Moss had concocted a scheme to get to New England.
In the fourth episode of “Man in the Arena,” the ESPN+ docuseries detailing Brady’s legendary career, Moss described how he met surreptitiously with Brady months before they became teammates.
“That night, I put an outfit on, sneak into the Patriots’ hotel. True story,” Moss said. “Meet Tom Brady for five minutes.”
Brady said it was his first “real interaction” with Moss, who told the quarterback, “Bro, I want to play with you.”
Moss told Brady that things were not going well for him with the Raiders. Brady said he wasn’t really sure where this was coming from.
“I’m not the general manager, I’m the quarterback,” Brady said. “I didn’t realize he flew all the way out there to let me know that he wanted to come play together.”
The game in Minnesota was a Week 8 “Monday Night Football” matchup between the Patriots and Vikings, which New England won 31-7. The previous day, playing for the Raiders, Moss had had just two catches for 20 yards against Pittsburgh. He must have been motivated from his rendezvous with Brady, because the following week he had seven catches for 129 yards in a game against the Cardinals that was by far his best individual performance of the season.
Brady said in the docuseries that he was actually consulted by Bill Belichick before the Patriots traded a fourth-round pick to Oakland for Moss.
“Then offseason came, and I got a phone call from Coach Belichick. He was like, ‘What do you think?’ What do I think? I mean, abso-f–king-lutely,” Brady said.
