I agree. It seems like the skills we can clearly see on tape stick out to us the most, often at the expense of the mental or emotional skills. That makes sense, given that we can tell when Moss speeds by a DB, OBJ makes a crazy one-handed grab, or Fitzgerald makes a catch in traffic no one should be able to make, but it’s hard to tell when a guy has mentally checked out or emotionally given up (or, in a positive way, when Raymond Berry put in hours and hours after practice to perfect his timing routes with Unitas or Jerry Rice ran his famous hills to stay ahead of the competition). We see the effects of all the dedication, but we don’t seem to fairly attribute the production to those non-physical skills.

Maybe it’s because guys like you and I think we are more capable of replicating Rice’s dedication than we are of nearing Moss’s athletic ability, when the reality is that we’re not likely to come close to either. We think “if only Moss just had Rice’s dedication,” as if such an insane level of dedication is easy to achieve. That’s why, to me, it’s similar to saying “if only Rice had Moss’s speed or TO’s strength.”

Also, I don’t want to make it seem like I am saying Moss somehow lacks these mental/emotional skills. I don’t think one can succeed in a professional sport without a baseline level of physical or mental skills. Moss was clearly an intelligent player, which is a part of his game that may have gone overlooked had Belichick not specifically touted him for it.

Has anyone besides Bruce ever gone 9 seasons between seasons leading the team? Or longer than that?