Sunday, September 20, 1998

Cowboys, trying to polish image, had to pass on Moss

An AP Sports Analysis

By DENNE H. FREEMAN

AP Sports Writer

IRVING, Texas (AP) -- Sometime during the NFL season, when Randy Moss is still catching touchdown passes for the Minnesota Vikings, a hue and cry will arise as to how the Dallas Cowboys could have overlooked him.

Some will say the Cowboys did the right thing in passing on someone like Moss, a bad boy with a rap sheet to match. His off-the-field antics eventually landed him at tiny Marshall University, where he finished out his collegiate career.

The Cowboys took defensive end Greg Ellis of North Carolina with the eighth pick, joining 19 other NFL teams that gave Moss the cold shoulder until Minnesota took him 21st.

Why were the Cowboys in such a bind that they couldn't take Moss?

It was simple. They had made bad drafts at defensive end with players such as Shante Carver and Kavika Pittman and desperately needed immediate help. Ellis, although trying hard, has yet to provide it.

Also, owner Jerry Jones was trying to clean up the Cowboys' image, which was stained, smudged, tarnished and degraded by episodes of car crashes, drugs, sex, and, the final straw, former coach Barry Switzer's trying to board an airplane toting a pistol.

Jones couldn't take Moss -- no matter how many touchdowns per game he thought the young man could produce.

"We didn't underestimate his talent," Jones said this week. "He's going to be like another Deion Sanders. But we had a glaring need for a good defensive player at a key position. We got quality in Ellis both on and off the field."

"Off the field" is the key quote here.

Jones admitted the Cowboys were wary of Moss once he took off his uniform, showered and headed into the night.

"We had to evaluate what an individual was all about," Jones said. "Everybody in the world knows why he was in the 20th spot. We were concerned about him (Moss) off the field."

See how what goes around comes around?

If the Cowboys had a squeaky-clean image, they could have taken a chance on rehabilitating Moss and not worried about getting mud on their white sidewalls. Drafting him would have resulted in those "same old Cowboy" editorials in newspapers from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Jones, a known risk taker, couldn't risk it this time.

As it was, Jones was blindsided by one of his good guys, offensive lineman Larry Allen, whom he had made a multimillionaire earlier this year.

Allen was rushing from practices for rendezvous with a topless dancer, who filed a rape accusation with police. Allen, who was never charged, told police he was having consensual sex with the woman in a seedy part of town.

Having one of its star players acknowledging adultery is not good public relations for a team trying to polish its image.

It was probably a good thing Dallas didn't sign Moss because of its push to be perceived as role models.

However, if Moss has an all-world season, the Cowboys have nobody to blame but themselves for not being able to draft him. Bad drafts and bad boys put them in a bad bind. They had no choice but to pass on perhaps the best pass catcher to hit the NFL since Jerry Rice.