Randy's Quarterback Club

Ferguson knows the highlight is coming, he just doesn’t know when. He knows he will hear from old friends on social media. He knows his son will be fixed on the ceremony and his boy is going to say, “hey dad, that’s you!”

Though the former New York Jets, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans safety is quick to point out that he isn’t alone — certainly there will be ex-defensive backs across the country watching with hands over their eyes and hoping and praying the Moss highlight reel doesn’t include them — Ferguson’s experience with getting Mossed might be the first clip the Hall of Fame shows. Simply put: He was on the wrong end of the most exciting and eye-popping moment of sheer excellence in Moss’s career.

“I’m going to be happy for Randy,” Ferguson said over the phone from Los Angeles. “But I’m going to be like, man, not again. Can we stop showing it!?”

Heading into their matchup with the Denver Broncos on October 19, 2003, the Minnesota Vikings were on fire. Led by Moss’s 29 catches for 515 yards and six touchdowns, the Vikings opened the season with five straight wins.

The Broncos were just as strong, winning five of their first six (and the only loss was by one point). Behind Clinton Portis and a defense that would finish top 10 in points and yards against, Mike Shanahan was keeping Denver relevant in the post-Elway era. Heading into the game, the Broncos’ secondary hadn’t allowed more than 200 yards passing since Week 1.

So they figured with the right strategy, they could slow Randy down.

“Our gameplan going in defensively — even before that play — was, Randy’s been great going down field in the vertical passing game, jumping up, taking the ball out of the air, so we wanted to make sure we took him out of the equation,” Ferguson said.

“We knew any time Randy ran a route… Randy traditionally doesn’t run the short and intermediate routes, his routes were vertical routes,” Ferguson added. “One thing we knew about Randy at that time, if the ball’s not coming to Randy, he’s not running. If you see him, what we call ‘knees and elbows,’ which means he’s digging, he’s running, the ball is coming to him. Our idea was to try to double cover him with the corner and the safety over the top.”

With 12 seconds remaining in the first half, the plan was largely working. Quarterback Daunte Culpepper hit Kelly Campbell for a 47-yard touchdown, but that was the only Vikings score and the two competitive clubs were knotted at seven.

Culpepper had just been sacked by Trevor Pryce, pushing the line of scrimmage back to Minnesota’s own 41-yard line.

Nearly every team in the world would have run the ball and taken it to halftime. But those teams didn’t have Randy Moss.

So the Vikings elected to pass.

“I’m already as deep as I can be and my eyes are on Randy Moss,” Ferguson said. “I notice that Culpepper breaks contain. All the sudden you just hear this gasp from the crowd like, ‘here it comes.’ He stops and just heaves the ball in the air. I’m looking and I’m trying to find Randy Moss. My attention was on Randy.”

Culpepper’s bomb only made it to the 11-yard line, where Moss made a basket catch. The Broncos’ veteran safety, who had solid built a career as a starter by that time despite going undrafted, was there to bring him down.

“I saw the ball was coming short and Randy was coming back to the ball. I’m thinking: ‘I don’t see anyone else going to attack him, so I need to do something,'” Ferguson said. “I run and I grab him and I’m thinking, ‘OK, he made the catch, secure the tackle, take him to the ground, time expires, we go into the half.’”

And then Moss did something Ferguson never would have seen coming in his wildest dreams.

“Low and behold, I see Randy’s helmet is looking back toward where the line of scrimmage was located. If you look at the tape again, you can see him looking at Moe [Williams],” Ferguson said. “He can see everything. I didn’t see it until the last moment until I was pulling him down to the ground. I went from, ‘yeah, I’m pulling him down to the ground,” to, ‘oh no, not this.’”

“As I’m falling to the ground, I see Moe run by and then I hear this loud roar.”

Moss flipped the ball over his right shoulder into the waiting hands of running back Moe Williams, who jogged into the end zone to put the Vikings up 14-7.

“Do you know how demoralizing that was going into halftime?” Ferguson said.

Ferguson knew instantly he was going to be famous.

“I was so pissed. I was so angry,” he said. “We just gave up a touchdown right before the half. It was with Randy Moss involved and I knew instantly…I said, ‘they’re going to run the crap out of this video and my number is in this picture.’”

One thing that Ferguson didn’t know even 15 years later is that Randy and Moe had concocted the play in practice.

“We had plays like that that we’d do during practice… It never worked in practice,” Williams said over the phone laughing. “You want to be prepared for those type of situations.”