Are you kidding me !? Moss is easily the better of the two, no question. Let's rate these two on a normal wide receiver-scale type comparison....
Hands- No question here. T.O. is waaay to inconsistent, drops too many catchable balls and uses his body too much when catching. He does make some nice catches at times, but every NFL receiver will make a nice catch, thats why we watch them on TV. Moss, while he also tends to lose focus at times, is much more consistent and can catch anything within five yards of his frame, horizontally or vertically. He is better at jump balls than T.O., and is much more consistent when he has to use one-handed catches.
Blocking- Many people will find this hard to believe, but if you watch tape of Randy blocking last season, you can't help but notice how much improvement he made from a few seasons ago. I remember numerous crack-back blocks and blocks which helped Bongterrio and others weave downfield for a TD. Now he isn't Hines Ward caliber, but my point is that he isn't as soft as everybody thinks he is. Now T.O. is muscularly much bigger than Moss, however I fail to see it being used to help in the running game. Like Randy, I have seen T.O. make some good blocks in his career, but it seems like his effort is equal with randy's.
Routes- Again, Moss has T.O. beat here as well. T.O. tends to round off some of the sharper breaking routes in games which leads to less separation between him and the DB. Granted T.O. will sometimes catch these anyways, most receivers aren't able to get away with it. Moss also will round off his routes as well but for different reasons. When the play isn't going to him or if he is tired, THEN he will round off his routes. When the ball is going to him or if he feels like running his route full speed, it is a much smoother and fluid route than any route T.O. runs.
Release- This is the only category that I might give to T.O, simply because of his power. While Moss does have excellent quickness for his size, he will get held up at the line by some of the larger corners in the league. Nobody wants to press T.O. no because of his quickness, but because of the fact that he will bitch slap you repeatedly until he gets open. DB's don't want that.
Deep Ball- Again I must give this edge to Moss. While both receivers are similar height wise, Moss is much faster than T.O. is and knows how to get deep on a defense which is obviously stacked to his side. It seems that whenever I see T.O. going deep he never works the DB, he just runs straight ahead hoping for McNabb to put it in a spot where the DB can't get to it. This might be under the "routes" category as well, but nevertheless, Moss owns any jump ball or over the shoulder catch.
Summary- While Moss does have T.O. beat in mostly every category, T.O. is better at catching in traffic and going inside. As far as being team cancers, both are equally bad IMO. Moss may be happy now in OAK, but give him a few weeks of not catching 10 passes a game and we'll hear from him. Both guys had two of the best receivers ever to coach them (Carter and Rice), but the edge in pure football talent must be given to Randy Moss.
zmac
