"You can't throw Randy Moss a bad pass," Brown said yesterday morning, after getting a massage on his day off. "He has a wingspan that's unbelievable; therefore, if the ball is eight feet high, he can go get it. If it's low and in front three or four yards short, he's long enough to stretch back and catch it. I've never seen a guy that tall with probably as much athleticism."

So the Eagles' depleted secondary will have no shot Sunday when it takes on Moss and the New England Patriots' offense at Gillette Stadium?

"I think everybody's beatable," the Eagles cornerback said. "This is what's funny to me, and this is why I wouldn't gamble. Say Tom Brady takes a blow to the head in the first quarter and gets a concussion. Are they beatable? Say Randy Moss runs a go route and pulls a hamstring. Are they beatable? It always takes a total team effort. Everybody seems to forget that. The game we play, it's such a violent sport, you never know when a guy is going to go down."

So there you go. The most effective way to stop the 6-foot-4 Moss, he of the four touchdown catches against Buffalo last Sunday, is literally to take him out of the game.

Now, Brown wasn't implying that that will be the Eagles' strategy - he is not a dirty player. But it is a valid strategy, because no other this season has worked. With Tom Brady delivering the ball with amazing accuracy, Moss, at the age of 30 and into his 10th season, is having a career year.

Through 10 games, Moss leads the NFL with 1,052 receiving yards, 16 touchdowns, and 96 points scored. With just over two minutes to go in the first half against Buffalo, Moss surpassed 1,000 yards for the season, the first Patriots receiver to hit that plateau since Troy Brown in 2001.

According to an NFL Network report, Moss has received three $350,000 bonuses for catching 45, then 55, then 65 passes. He now has 66 on the season, and with nine more will receive an additional $350,000 check.

Just how valuable is Moss? Consider this from his coach, Bill Belichick, who is not prone to heaping praise on any player:

"I'm glad we have Randy Moss, let's put it that way," Belichick told the media in New England on Monday, a day after obliterating Buffalo, 56-10. "I'm glad we got him, and certainly as a head coach, I've never had a better receiver than Randy Moss. I've been on teams that had a lot of good receivers, but he's very good, and he's very good for this football team."

Obviously.

After two brutal seasons stuck in Oakland, the book on Moss was that he was washed up as a player. Too irritable. Too unreliable. Too disconnected.

But, clearly, playing with the best quarterback in the league has agreed with Moss. The Patriots added to their free-agent haul - Wes Welker and Donté Stallworth also were big off-season pickups - on the day of the draft, when they sent a relatively meaningless fourth-round pick to Oakland for Moss.

The result has been an offense unlike any the NFL has ever seen. The Patriots lead the league with 436.8 yards per game. If they stay around their current scoring average of 41.1 points per game they will surpass the league scoring record of 38.8 points per game set by the 1950 Los Angeles Rams.

New England's 411 points scored to date are the sixth highest in franchise history, and the team is on pace for 657 points, which would shatter the NFL record of 556 set by the 1998 Minnesota Vikings.

Moss knows a little something about that team. He was a rookie playing for Minnesota then.

Moss also knows a little something about the Eagles. He has played them four times twice in the regular season and once in the playoffs with Minnesota, and once with Oakland. He has never beaten the Eagles, and never had 100 receiving yards in a game.

To have a chance at beating the Patriots - and make no mistake, no one outside the NovaCare Complex is giving the Birds a chance - the Eagles have to contain Moss, which won't be easy.

"If you look at this Patriots offense, you say, 'Where do you start?' " NBC's John Madden said yesterday. "And I know that's what Jim Johnson is going to do. And the answer is, you start with Randy Moss. Now, what do you do about it? You have to double him, obviously. I think you have to hit him in that first five yards to disrupt him, just to make him slow up and start over again.

"But then you better keep that first guy that is going to hit him, you better keep him with him, too, and put a true double on him. And he's still probably going to beat it.

"They have a term where they just throw the ball up there, and he jumps up and catches it - you got 'Moss'd.' And he's going to 'Moss' a lot of guys."

Said Brown: "I've never seen a guy with a stride such as Randy. It's like he's running two yards to your one."

Still, the defensive effort against Moss will start up front with a line that didn't register a sack last week against Miami. The linemen have to pressure Brady, something else opponents haven't been successful doing this season.

Even if the Eagles can rattle Brady - a big if - the defensive backs will have their hands full. The Patriots surely will try to exploit unproven safety J.R. Reed, who could start if Quintin Mikell can't play with a sprained knee ligament.

"Once he gets over 30 or 40 yards, you've really got to just run deep, and if anything else, you have to say, 'You win,' " Brown said. "I mean, he's just an explosive guy. If you're too close to him and he takes off deep, he has a height advantage and you're going to look crazy going for the ball. I don't care if you're 6-2. He's 6-5, and he can jump."

Moss is the best receiver in the game. The Eagles can't let him run crazy. And even then, it will be tough to stop the best team the NFL has seen in a long, long time.

Ashley Fox |

Patriots by

22

Las Vegas bookmakers have made the New England Patriots a 22-point pick over the Eagles.

According to R.J. Bell of Pregame.com, that number represents the second-biggest point spread ever for an NFL game.

Bell said the biggest favorite was San Francisco, a 23-point pick in 1993 against Cincinnati. The 49ers did not cover the spread, winning by 21-8.

Ashley Fox |

Eagles at Patriots

Inside