King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Madden, Michaels preach to the choir: NFL preseason is bunk. Plus: Randy Moss, instant replay.

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Sept. 10, 2007 | Al Michaels and John Madden committed some NFL-insider heresy during their season-opening Sunday night broadcast by slagging the exhibition season. All they were doing was giving voice to the complaints of virtually every fan the league has, and they were half joking anyway. But it was nice to hear from such prominent voices.

It was early in the Dallas Cowboys' 45-35 win over the New York Giants, New York having taken a 6-0 lead on a 60-yard bomb from Eli Manning to Plaxico Burress, who missed the entire preseason with a bad back.

"So much for training camp, huh?" Madden said. "We've seen Plaxico Burress doesn't play a down in training camp and boom he hits the big one. Randy Moss catches nine passes today. Michael Strahan's in there in the first series, rushing. He's only practiced for four days."

Moss missed most of his first preseason with New England because of a hamstring injury. Strahan held out from the Giants until this week.

"Who needs preseason?" Michaels went along.

"That's nouveau football," Madden said, invoking a term he's using a lot already in the first two broadcasts of the year, "and I'm starting to believe in it."

Welcome to the club.

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The return of Randy Moss [PERMALINK]

The best story of Week 1 -- with two games yet to be played -- has to be Randy Moss having a huge game in his debut with the New England Patriots. You know this by now, but Moss caught nine passes for 183 yards including a 51-yard touchdown as the Patriots blasted the New York Jets 38-14.

Moss was summarily dumped by the exasperated Minnesota Vikings after the 2004 season, traded to the Oakland Raiders for a couple of draft picks and linebacker Napoleon Harris, not exactly the haul you'd expect for one of the game's elite players unless his team was tired of dealing with him.

Moss spent two lost years in Oakland before the Raiders traded him for a fourth-rounder to the Patriots, who were criticized in some circles for doing that thing the Patriots just don't do, going for a big-name player who appears to be past his prime.

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