How Randy Moss Planted Seed To Team Up With Tom Brady, Join Patriots

Many credit Bill Belichick for the successful Randy Moss experiment in New England. A common narrative is the Patriots head coach took a chance on a player who’d largely fallen out of grace in the NFL.

But as it turns out, it was the Hall of Fame wide receiver himself who took matters into his own hands in hopes of rejuvenating his career.

Moss, as he reveals in an upcoming episode of the “Man in the Arena,” had dreams of catching passes from Tom Brady while he was with the Raiders. Wanting to see those dreams come to fruition, Moss flew from Oakland to Minnesota to meet with Brady before a Patriots-Vikings matchup in 2006. The four-time first-team All Pro even snuck into New England’s team hotel to make it happen.

“He said, ‘Bro, I wanna play with you,'” Brady recalls in Episode 4 of his new documentary series, per NBC Sports’ Peter King.

Sure enough, the Patriots swung a deal for Moss in the offseason leading up to the 2007 campaign. Moss’ first season in Foxboro was a massive success, as he and Brady both set NFL records and the Patriots fell one win short of a perfect season.