By Chad Graff

Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

In the days leading up to his Monday night induction into the Vikings’ Ring of Honor, Randy Moss has spent time reflecting on his 14-year playing career with the aid of the internet.

Moss has taken to typing his name into YouTube and watching some of the highlights that made him a six-time Pro Bowl player and likely hall of famer.

One of his favorites is his lateral to Moe Williams that ended the first half of a 2003 game with a touchdown against the Denver Broncos.

“Every time I look back at that play, it’s like the things I did in the backyard as a kid,” Moss said Thursday. “It’s just something I did for so long that it became routine to me. … Every day I put that helmet on, I was just like a kid going out to recess to have fun. They went to the playground and I went out between the white lines.”

Moss will be inducted to the Vikings’ Ring of Honor during halftime of the team’s season opener Monday night against the New Orleans Saints. He’ll also be on hand at U.S. Bank Stadium that night as a broadcaster for ESPN’s pregame and postgame shows.

It’ll be the first major induction for Moss, who becomes eligible for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018. Only five wide receivers have been inducted on the first ballot, and none since Jerry Rice in 2010.

The committee for the Canton, Ohio-based Hall of Fame will weigh whether Moss deserves to join them when they come to Minneapolis for the Super Bowl.

For now, Moss said he’s not concerned with any perceived bias against wide receivers or whether he can become only the second receiver since 1995 to be inducted on the first year of his eligibility.

“There’s a lot of different avenues we could go down with the Hall of Fame,” Moss said, “The voting, the criteria, all that stuff. All I know is I just played the game to the best of my ability. I put my mark, I put my stamp, I put my family’s name on the game of football and the National Football League. You can’t get any higher.

“Wherever people hold me at or wherever they put me, that’s up to them. But I know deep down in my heart, when it’s all said and done, I know where I stand. I stand up there with the greats. First ballot or not, I understand what it is, man.

“It’s a political war, and I was one of those guys who didn’t play (politics), nor do I intend to play into politics. I know what I stood for. I know what the game is. I gave my all to the game, 14 years through the ups and downs, I still gave my commitment to the National Football League. Like it or not.”
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