After a bout with bile duct cancer, Hall of Fame receiver Randy Moss is ready to go for the 2025 season, when he’ll return to his weekly job at ESPN.
“Man, I look forward to it,” Moss told TMZ.com, via AwfulAnnouncing.com. “I miss my crew. Greeny, Alex [Smith], Tedy [Bruschi]. But I really didn’t miss Rex Ryan much because he got on my nerves. Rex, if you are hearing this, I am coming back, so scoot over. . . . [W]e have a great group of guys that I work with that I tremendously missed for two months. ESPN accepted me with open arms, man, I just can’t wait for Week 1 to get back up there with the crew and talk football.”
Moss left the show in November for treatment. He had surgery in late November. He returned for ESPN’s Super Bowl coverage.
“Just being able to experience that was nothing I wish on any man or any human being,” Moss said. “But for the fact that God took me through it and brought me out of it back healthy, being able to be back with my family, great support system, and some great doctors around me. Like I said, it was an emotional roller coaster, but the people I met on the way, I’m a blessed man. I’ll leave it at that.”
It’s great news for one of the all-time great players. No receiver had more talent than Randy Moss. Despite all the great receivers currently in the NFL, Randy Moss still has a magic and an aura that none since him have matched.
And he’s from West Virginia. Which, as a West Virginian, has been a point of pride for a long time.
Last month, a weird story emerged that former NFL running back Adrian Peterson got into a fist fight over a poker game. Now that story is getting even weirder.
Peterson has signed up for a celebrity boxing match, and his opponent will be the guy he fought at the poker game, Joe Castaneda, according to TMZ.com.
The 40-year-old Peterson has boxed once before, and it did not go well for him, as he was knocked out by former NFL running back Le’Veon Bell.
Peterson has had a rough go of it lately, with legal issues within the past year ranging from failing to appear in court in child support cases to a misdemeanor assault to a driving while intoxicated arrest.
Peterson was the 2012 NFL Most Valuable Player, the 2007 NFL offensive rookie of the year and a four-time first-team All-Pro.
Colorado coach Deion Sanders wants to add a couple of assistant coaches with significant NFL experience to his staff.
Sanders said at Big 12 media days that he’s “praying” Byron Leftwich will agree to coach at Colorado, and that he wants Mike Zimmer on the staff as well.
“Our coaching staff, this is without Byron Leftwich, which I’m praying that he does the right thing, and Mike Zimmer, we have 160 years of NFL experience,” Sanders said. “With those two added, that’s 204 years of NFL experience. And I want those years.”
Although there was a report in March that Colorado had already hired Leftwich, Sanders’ comments made clear that Leftwich has not yet agreed to join the Buffaloes’ staff. Leftwich was a first-round pick of the Jaguars in 2003 and spent a decade as an NFL quarterback, and he has also been an NFL assistant coach, most recently as the Buccaneers’ offensive coordinator from 2019 to 2022.
Zimmer was reportedly planning to retire this offseason, but Sanders would like him to change his mind about that. Zimmer is best known to football fans as the head coach of the Vikings from 2014 to 2021, but he also has a great deal of experience as an assistant, including working as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator last year, a previous stint as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator from 2000 to 2006, and defensive coordinator jobs in Atlanta and Cincinnati as well. After the Vikings fired him, Zimmer worked as a consultant for Sanders, first at Jackson State and then at Colorado. Zimmer’s nephew, Andrew Zimmer, is already on the Colorado staff as a quality control analyst.
Sanders has transformed Colorado into a high-profile program, and major NFL experience on his coaching staff has been a big part of that. Sanders also has Pro Football Hall of Famer Marshall Faulk coaching running backs, Pro Football Hall of Famer Warren Sapp working as defensive pass rush coordinator, and former NFL head coach Pat Shurmur as offensive coordinator.
It made perfect sense for the NFL teams based in Texas to contribute $500,000 each to rescue and relief efforts from the catastrophic flooding that has claimed many lives and caused widespread destruction. Now, a team not tied to Texas is matching what the Cowboys and Texans did.
The Vikings and the Wilf family have also contributed $500,000 to the effort. The team announced the move on Wednesday.
“We are deeply saddened by the continued devastation and loss of life in the Texas Hill Country and can’t imagine the pain so many are facing,” Vikings owners Mark, Zygi, and Leonard Wilf said in a statement. “We are praying for peace for the families who have lost a loved one and strength for those who continue to risk their lives leading the rescue and recovery effort.”
It’s an impressive gesture by the Vikings, and it hopefully will cause other NFL teams to follow suit. Texas is a hotbed of football, with its Friday Night Lights a feeder system for a broad array of college programs in the state, which funnel plenty of great players to the NFL.
Regardless of whether other teams jump in, it’s a great gesture from a team that is headquartered a long way away from where the flooding has happened. And it’s a reminder that, even though we all live in our own states, we are all Americans.
Vikings linebacker Dallas Turner wired $240,000 to scammers who convinced him that they were representatives of his bank, and police are now investigating the matter.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reports that police have identified several suspects and are moving toward filing charges. About 1 percent of the money — less than $2,500 — has been recovered.
According to court records, Turner received a call on February 19 “from an individual impersonating a JP Morgan Chase banker. The caller claimed someone was attempting to impersonate [Turner] at a Chase Bank branch in Arizona.”
The caller convinced Turner that to prevent that person from fraudulently withdrawing money, he should transfer his money to two separate business accounts. Turner then went to two different Chase branches and at each of them transferred $120,000 to fraudulent business accounts. Only later when talking to a relative about what happened to him did Turner begin to suspect he had been a victim of a scam.
Neither Turner nor the Vikings has commented publicly on the matter, and an attorney representing Turner has also declined to comment.
Police have asked JPMorgan Chase whether its internal investigation indicated that any bank employees could have played a role in the scheme.
The Vikings took Turner with the 17th overall pick in last year’s NFL draft. He signed a fully guaranteed four-year, $15.77 million contract.
