Bill Belichick looked back on trading for Randy Moss in 2007: Former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick joined “The Pat McAfee Show” for their live coverage of the first round of the 2024 NFL Draft on Thursday night, predictably showcasing his vast football knowledge.

Along with offering (occasionally blunt) analysis of each draft pick, Belichick shared a few stories from his time with the Patriots. Specifically, the 72-year-old future Hall of Famer recalled “probably the most interesting” draft-day trade he made during his 24 years in New England, Hayden Bird of The Boston Globe reports.

“We’d been trying to trade for Randy Moss for probably two months,” Belichick remembered of the circumstances leading up to the 2007 deal. New England was coming off a 12-4 season, but needed wide receiver help. Moss, then 29 years old, had just gone through the worst statistical season of his career on a struggling Raiders team.

“After the first day of the draft, I talked to [Al] Davis and I said, ‘Well, are we going to make this deal or not?’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’ll do it for your fourth [round pick].'”

New England sent a fourth-rounder (110th overall) to Davis’s Raiders for Moss, then a five-time Pro Bowler. The problem was that the Patriots had to move quickly to finalize the trade.

“I said that we have to get the guy in for a physical. We can’t take his contract, we’re going to have to renegotiate his contract,” Belichick explained. “Mr. Davis said, ‘Well that’s your problem. You want to trade for him? Then trade for him, you get it done.'”

“I hung up the phone. This is like 11:30 at night on the first day of the draft. I called up Randy and said, ‘Randy, this is Coach Belichick.’ Boom, [he hung] up the phone.”

Moss, as he has humorously explained from his perspective, thought he was being pranked. He did not believe it was actually Belichick calling him.

Finally, on the third try, Belichick was able to communicate the message to Moss.

“Randy, this is Coach Belichick, we traded for you,” the longtime New England coach recalled, eventually explaining the details of the trade.

“I said yeah but look, we have to get this done by tomorrow at noon,” Belichick told Moss. “He goes, ‘Alright, what do I need to do?’ I said you need to come up, take a physical, and we need to renegotiate your contract.”

Moss was in Houston at the time, and was initially shocked at the quick timing.

“But I’ve got a plane,” Moss said to Belichick. “I’ll be there.”

“He flies [in],” Belichick added. “He’s there at eight in the morning, comes in and takes the physical, we renegotiate the contract, and we’re done at 10 o’clock. First thing he says to me is, ‘Where’s the playbook?'”

Moss, disproving accusations that he was not a team player, immediately committed himself to preparing for the next season.

“He said, ‘OK, because when I walk out there with the first team with Brady, I have to know all the plays, I can’t make mental errors and screw up. I have to know this offense,'” Belichick remembered of what Moss told him.

“He was smart, man,” said Belichick. The two watched film together, and Moss’s new head coach was quickly impressed by his knowledge of the game.

“This is awesome,” Belichick offered before explaining the detail of coverages Moss knew would be played against him. The two football minds quickly connected, with record-setting results.

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/theredzoneorg 
   
Don't forget to follow us on Threads at https://www.threads.net/@theredzoneorg 
     
Like us on Facebook at http://facebook.com/Theredzone.org