"Bill Belichick is a teddy bear," former New England Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss declared on a podcast with Fox Sports' Katie Nolan. "Great man. He's a great man."
Nolan had a really nice chat with Moss to cover the all time great's time working with Tom Brady, whether or not he achieved his personal goals, what it was like going back to watch his own highlights, and how he's faring in his new career as a sports analyst. We've embed the video of the podcast below.
Nolan, a Patriots fan, opens up in her talk with Moss at the 24th minute of her podcast to discuss the 2007 Patriots.
"What was it like behind the scenes, or in the locker room that season," Nolan asked. "Did you guys know you were going to...was every week like we're going to win this game, we're going to win every game."
"I think when they start coming on Bill Belichick with that DeflateGate..."
"Nonsense?"
"Yeah, the DeflateGate nonsense," Moss said. "I think that we come together as a family to understand that one of our 'brothers' slash dad has been attacked and Coach just tried to humble us and have us really focus and pay attention to the task at hand and that's going after each and every day at practice to make yourself better, individually and collectively, and then once the game time comes, one of the things that I did learn in New England is that if you...do the things asked of you, Sunday is just easy.
"And a lot of people see the success that we were able to have in 2007, why we were able to have that success because we prepared as a family, we went out on the streets and had dinner as a family, we even went to events as a family. So everything that we did was family oriented. You know, we bring in wives, kids, girlfriends, fiancees, everything that we did with one another for that year was all family oriented and then it trickled down from the weight room onto the field. So we prepared to have success because we set ourselves up to do that."
When asked to compare the 2007 Patriots with the 2015 version, Moss said that the "offensive line play was ten times better than it is right now...defensively, they're better than we were in 2007." Moss notes that the Patriots 2015 running game is better than the 2007 unit, but points out the contributions from Kevin Faulk. The omission of Laurence Maroney speaks volumes.
He calls Rob Gronkowski "a human machine," and says that "Antonio Brown is the best wide receiver in the game right now."
Moss said "I did do some things," with a wistful smile, reflecting on finally being able to watch his own highlight tapes.
The best part is listening to Moss explain his relationship with quarterback Tom Brady. It's all love. Nolan asks Moss to explain if there's any good stories about Brady that people need to know, but Moss goes in a different direction to gush about Brady.
"Just letting people know he's human," Moss said. "But other than that I don't really have anything. Everything we did was out of love, you know, he's been to my home, I've been to his, we've had dinner, his wife has cooked, my kids have played with his kids. Just the relationship that we have is a little bit more than the football field."
I mostly wanted to highlight this because the idea of Gisele Bundchen cooking for Moss and friends is absolutely hilarious to me. I don't doubt that it happened, but the idea of any superstar hosting a dinner party is just hilarious. It's mostly rooted in the fact that I feel like Julian Edelman and Rob Gronkowski go to Chuck-e-Cheese after games and I can't imagine what a home cooked meal in the Brady-Bundchen household would look like. Probably too green and vegetably for my liking.
Here's a final quote from Moss before you should go listen to the whole thing (seriously, you can put this on before you go to bed because Randy's voice is like silk):
"I'm very glad to be able to be a part of that organization because when I first got there, I thought I knew football, there was all these numbers that I put up, I'd been in the end zone multiple times, but when I got there, I got humbled very quickly to understand that, man, I don't know football.
"So I think that's why I think I hold the Patriots up on my list as the #1 team, I mean I was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings, I still have love for Minnesota, but the success that I was able to have in New England, you know, coming out of Oakland, a lot of people were trash talking, bad mouthing me, talking about how my skills were diminishing, and things like that, so I just really put in a conscious effort in to really go out there and just prove people wrong and I just had fun doing it, gained some friends a long the way, I was definitely blessed to be a part of that organization."
RANDY MOSS LOVES THE PATRIOTS THE MOST! Randy, we love you too. Now go watch your highlight tapes.
Interview starts at 24:00 and runs for roughly an hour.