Nate Burleson recently told a story about his former teammate with the Minnesota Vikings that only adds fuel to Moss’ legendary status.
When Randy Moss first entered the NFL in 1998 as a member of the Minnesota Vikings, teams around the league basically had no answer for him and his freakish abilities. It is probably why he was able to haul in 17 touchdown passes during his first year with the Vikings, which still stands as an all-time rookie record.
Former Minnesota wide receiver Nate Burleson spent two of his 11 NFL seasons as a teammate of Moss’ and is never afraid to share some of the amazing feats of athleticism he witnessed Moss display out on the field each week. Recently Burleson, now an analyst on NFL Network, shared a tale that may explain just how fast Moss actually was when he played in the league.
"“Fastest guy I’ve seen with my own eyes is Randy Moss. Olympic speed. I remember one time, it was a running joke at practice how fast he was. He’s talking trash to Daunte Culpepper and Daunte Culpepper’s talking trash to Randy. They were like brothers. They would fight all the time, but absolutely loved each other.And Randy’s sitting there saying, ‘Man, you can’t out-throw me, you can’t out-throw me.’ And Daunte said, ‘you better believe that I can out-throw you bro. I can out-throw you.’So at practice, Randy has a go-route. Daunte drops back, he sits there and he throws it from the back pocket. I’m talking about as far as he can. And everybody’s sitting there and we see this ball take off. And Randy is looking, there’s no way he can get to this ball. There’s no way.More from The Viking Age6 biggest draft steals in Minnesota Vikings historyFormer Vikings first-round pick could reportedly return to NFC NorthBears analyst has extremely embarrassing Kirk Cousins take6 Vikings who (maybe) won’t make the 53-man roster in 2023Predicting what the Vikings will do in the 2023 NFL Draft based on 2022He’s running at what we think is full speed. He looks up, tucks his head back down, sticks it, and catches it with his finger tips. And I looked at Pep and even Daunte Culpepper had his eyes wide open thinking, ‘I did not think he could get to that.’ And then Mike Tice jumps in and he’s like, ‘c’mon don’t ever test Randy. That’s why he’s the best in the league.’It was the craziest thing I’d ever seen.”"
That my friends is Randy Moss in a nutshell. No receiver before him had ever made as big an impact on the game like he did whenever he stepped out on the football field during his prime.
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No one. Not even Jerry Rice.