Randy Moss

Randy Moss is an American Hall of Fame former professional football wide receiver whose 14-year NFL career produced 156 career touchdown receptions (the second-most in NFL history at his retirement, behind only Jerry Rice's 197), 982 career receptions, and his 2018 induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He was born Randy Gene Moss on February 13, 1977, in Rand, West Virginia, into a working-class American African-American family. His mother Maxine Moss was a homemaker who raised him and his two siblings as a single mother in the West Virginia coal-mining region.

His college football career at Marshall University across 1996–1997 — under head coach Bob Pruett — produced his 1997 NCAA Division I-AA national championship and his 1997 Heisman Trophy fourth-place finish (despite playing in the 1997 NCAA Division I-AA — the lowest-place Heisman finalist ever from a non-Division I-A program at the time). His 1998 NFL Draft 21st-overall selection by the Minnesota Vikings — produced by his pre-draft Charleston, West Virginia and Notre Dame, Indiana legal difficulties (which had previously caused his Notre Dame and Florida State recruiting offer rescissions) — launched his 1998 NFL public profile.

His 1998 NFL rookie season produced 17 touchdown receptions (the all-time NFL rookie record at the time), 69 receptions, and 1,313 receiving yards. His 1998 Vikings team won 15 regular-season games (then the NFL single-season-wins record) and produced his 1998 NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Award.

His subsequent NFL career across the Vikings (1998–2004), the Oakland Raiders (2005–2006), the New England Patriots (2007–2010), the Tennessee Titans (2010), the Vikings (second 2010 stint), and the San Francisco 49ers (2012) produced multiple defining NFL career achievements. The 2007 New England Patriots single-season wide-receiver record of 23 touchdown receptions — across the Patriots' 2007 16–0 regular-season undefeated record — produced his late-2000s NFL public profile. The 2007 Patriots ultimately lost Super Bowl XLII to the New York Giants on February 3, 2008. His later TV-broadcasting career across 2017–present has produced his ESPN Monday Night Football TV-broadcasting analyst position. He has been with American Lydia Moss since 2008, and the couple has multiple children.

His name Randy began as the English diminutive of Randall or Randolph (from the Old Germanic root meaning "shield-wolf"). Randy was a popular American boys' name through the mid-20th century.