It was the first day of Vikings training camp in 1998, and Robert Smith, the team's veteran running back, was on the phone talking to his agent during lunch. Coming off a breakout season, you'd think the topic of conversation was Smith's contract or his health or how the opening workout went. But no. The agent wanted to know what everyone else wanted to know about the Vikings that year.
"Well," Smith recalls him asking, "what do you think of this Moss kid?'"
Smith's answer was simple. "I don't know about him off the field," he told him. "But if he stays healthy, he's going to be a Hall of Famer."
By lunchtime of the first day of Randy Moss' first training camp. That's how long it took teammates to know what he was going to be.
"I saw something Moss did that first day, and I'll never forget it," Smith continues. "It was like a 15-yard dig route. And I remember the speed in which he made the cut—how easily he separated and how quickly he was able to go up and snatch the ball out of the air, never losing stride and getting upfield. It was something I had never seen before athletically.
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