Bears should ignore any thoughts of Moss

The Bears should never, under any circumstance, consider picking up Randy Moss.

Don't even think about it.

He was booted out of two universities Notre Dame and Florida State and was jailed twice before ever catching a pass in college.

If he's putting up Hall of Fame numbers and giving 100 percent effort, while at the same time behaving like a lout, the trade-off is acceptable.

When he wanted to be, Moss was as dangerous as any wide receiver who ever played the game. But he rarely gives 100 percent effort, and his skills and his speed have diminished. He's just not worth the trouble anymore.

In four games with the Vikings he had 13 catches for 174 yards. In four games with the Patriots he had 9 catches for 139 yards.

Some guys will take a play off here and there. Some guys will even mail it in for a whole game. Moss essentially blew off an entire season in 2006 when he was with the Raiders and caught 42 passes for 553 yards. And that was when he was still in his prime, which he isn't anymore, at 33.

Consider that just in the past month the Patriots and Vikings, two teams with playoff potential, both desperate for help at wide receiver, told him to get lost.

Moss is a cancer and a quitter. He is, quite simply, a bad guy. He's a bad teammate and, most important for the Bears or any team with young wide receivers, a horrible example on and off the field.

Is this the guy you would want mentoring Johnny Knox, Devin Hester, Earl Bennett and Devin Aromashodu?

The Vikings didn't want him polluting the mind of their spectacular, young wide receiver Percy Harvin, even though Harvin's ankle injury and the earlier hip injury to Sidney Rice leaves them thin at wide receiver.

But not thin enough to put up with Moss' act, which has alienated even his teammates, who recognize a phony when they see one.

At 2-5 the Vikings are desperate for a spark to ignite a team that was expected to contend for the Super Bowl, but they're not desperate enough to keep Moss. They were so anxious to be rid of the ultimate prima donna that they let him walk after just 25 days, even though they had given up a third-round draft pick to get him from the Patriots.

Kudos to embattled Vikings coach Brad Childress for saying, “Enough's enough.”

It's bad enough that Childress has to cater to the whims of an over-the-hill, turnover-waiting-to-happen quarterback in the egomaniacal Brett Favre. But having to listen to Moss complain that the Vikings coaching staff didn't take his recommendations on how they should play the Patriots was too much.

Moss lacks the conscience and the backbone to put forth the same effort on the field as his teammates, but he has the gall to presume to tell the coaching staff how it should be doing its job. He's a disgrace to every player in every locker room who puts it on the line every week. Moss only does that when he feels like it.

Would his presence on the Bears open up the field for other receivers, or for the often-neglected running game? Maybe, but only if Moss actually ran his routes full speed when he wasn't the intended receiver, which he rarely does. Or, if he blocked (yeah, right).

Not only is Moss not worth the $3.38 million that remains on his contract for this season, which is what a team that claims him on waivers will have to pay him, he's not worth the $450,000 that he would make if he clears waivers and then is signed as a free agent. In that case, the Vikings would have to pay the $3.38 million, the remainder of his $6.4 million base for this season.

And a lot of players and coaches on that team will consider it money well spent, just to be rid of Moss.

Follow Bob LeGere's Bears reports via Twitter@BobLeGere. Check out his blog, Bear Essentials, at DailyHerald.com