"I might believe that Randy Moss is retiring, except I know this is the move of someone behaving like a petulant child.

Over the past five days, Moss has been told by not one, but two teams that they preferred someone else over him. In both cases, it was someone Moss thought he was better than. When the New England Patriots traded for Chad Ochocinco and the New York Jets signed Plaxico Burress, Moss decided to take his Hall-of-Fame talent and go home.

Never mind that plenty of teams around the league think Moss has something left in the tank and could be helpful to their cause, they weren't the right teams for Moss. He either wanted to go back to the Patriots – a proposition that one source close to Moss said was still alive last week – or go to New York, where he could play for coach Rex Ryan and make a last push for some post-career marketing dollars. A Patriots deal has always seemed like a creation of Moss' imagination, as if his dissing of the owner and his laconic play were suddenly going to be forgiven.

The rumor of Moss to the Jets, however, seemed to have legs, fed by Ryan's willingness to embrace rogue characters. For the first few days of free agency, Moss sat quietly as the Jets signed wideout Santonio Holmes and flirted with star cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha. Sure, those guys were big-ticket items, but when the Jets signed Burress, Moss went into serious malfunction. Yeah, he may not have played well last year, but Burress hadn't played at all in two years. You couldn't even justify age as a difference. Moss is only six months older than Burress."