Moss still explosive but only on field

GLENDALE, ARIZ. -- They spend their lives carrying it, throwing it, kicking it, regarding their most important possession as a lifeless object completely under their control.

But then, sometimes, they wake up 10 years later and realize it was the other way around.

Football has carried them to a new perspective. Football has thrown them into a different landscape. Football has kicked them into adulthood.

Sometimes, a guy like Randy Moss sits for one of the few interviews of a mostly nasty and obnoxious career, two earrings gleaming, red bandanna sticking out from under his baseball cap, and you are ready to pounce on him.

Then he pounces on you.

“I am very, very blessed to be where I’m at.”

And this:

“Anything that will contribute to a victory, I’m willing.”

And this:

“The game has helped me grow and mature.”

Then, finally, this:

“I’m living the dream.”

No, no, no, I was dreaming.

This is Randy Moss?

This is the guy who once, as a Minnesota Viking, walked off the field before the end of the game?

This is the guy who spent two seasons dogging it in Oakland, cutting routes short and ending drills early and admittedly failing to even care?

This is a guy who once pretended to moon Green Bay fans, acknowledged smoking marijuana, and bumped a female traffic control officer with his car?

And, oh yeah, remember when he squirted a referee with a water bottle?

As the ticking time bomb on the stoic New England Patriots, Moss is the focus of attention Tuesday at Super Bowl media day.

We circle him carefully, we talk softly, we try ever-so-gently to defuse and dissect and . . .

Boom!

That explosion we feel isn’t Moss, but our expectations.

He is pleasant. He is reflective. He isn’t apologetic, but he is clearly humbled.

He is, at age 30, finally a grown-up.

“How I approached the game when I was younger, I was very angry, not at anyone in particular, just the game of football,” he says. “Now I still carry that same chip on my shoulder, but now I do understand that I’m a little bit older.”

Older, wiser, and even better?

Before this season, Moss teetered in Terrell Owens Land, a great talent destined to be remembered only as a great pain.

The Vikings dumped him. The Raiders disliked him.

Then the Patriots took a chance on him, pilfering him from Al Davis with a fourth-round draft pick, gambling that he would buy into Bill Belichick’s tough love as previously disgruntled players such as Corey Dillon had.

The only way it would work was if, underneath all of this theatrics, Moss really did want to win.

“I’ve always been unselfish,” he says today. “But people were disturbed at how I approached it.”

He says, basically, he wanted to win so badly that he didn’t care how he looked doing it.

“I’ve always carried this certain arrogance, but it’s not a selfish arrogance, it’s more of a focus,” he says.

For the first time in a career spent with street-balling teams in Minnesota and Oakland, that focus joined a locker room full of players looking through the same lens.

And, um, yeah, turns out the dude really does want to win.

Moss caught an NFL-record 23 touchdown passes this season, one fewer than in his previous three seasons combined.

Moss caught passes for 1,493 yards, the second-highest total of his career.

And what impressed folks more than anything was his performance in the Patriots’ two playoff games.

When he caught a total of two passes. For 32 yards. And zero touchdowns.

A previous incarnation of Moss would have chased Tom Brady down the sideline, cornered Bill Belichick in the runway, then driven through stoplights to a local TV station to rip them all on the evening news.

But this Randy Moss laughed, and pumped his fist, and hugged everyone in sight on his way to the first Super Bowl he has ever attended.

For nine seasons, he refused to go if he couldn’t play.

“I think earlier in my career I would have probably tried to voice my opinion in certain plays and certain ways to get open,” he says. “But I’ve got younger guys such as [Wes] Welker, [Jabar] Gaffney, [Donte] Stallworth, guys that their bodies are a little bit fresher than mine.”

What manners couldn’t teach him, mortality has.

“I definitely don’t have a problem with what [the offense] is doing, and I’ve never had a problem with any of my teammates,” he says.

It’s not that he doesn’t still have problems. He currently is under a temporary restraining order after a Florida woman accused him of assaulting her, then refusing to allow her to seek medical attention.

No charges have been filed, and Moss has adamantly denied the accusation. On Tuesday he refused to address it.

“I’m not thinking about that,” he says. “I’m here for the Super Bowl.”

OK, so what about all those other issues in your past? Any regrets?

“Not at all,” he says. “What can I take back? I am who I am, and I am going to do what I want to do and say what I want to say. . . . It’s already happened and there’s nothing that I can do.”

The Patriots, once disbelievers like the rest of us, say they see his regret every day.

“They were pretty skeptical,” the Patriots’ Rodney Harrison said of his teammates’ initial view of Moss. “Can he really fit in and do the things that we wanted him to do?”

And now?

“Being here, he’s been the ideal teammate,” Harrison said.

Still, on Tuesday, he is asked the question that is supposed to ignite.

He is asked, c’mon, how would he feel if he doesn’t catch a ball Sunday and his Patriots still beat the New York Giants?

He doesn’t even pause.

“Yeah, I like that,” he says. “I can ride off into the sunset with that.”

I never thought I’d say this at noon, but, you know, I sort of like Randy Moss at sunset.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at [email protected]. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.