When he was with the Green Bay Packers, Brett Favre openly longed to throw the ball to Randy Moss.
That vision came close to reality in 2007, according to ESPN's Andrew Brandt, who served as the team's vice president from 1999 to 2008.
Back during the 2007 draft, Moss was being shopped by the Oakland Raiders. The Packers wanted him, but so did the New England Patriots.
As Brandt tells it, Moss wanted a one-year deal, so he could play for a better contract in 2008.
Green Bay sought a two-year pact and wouldn't budge. The Patriots budged and the rest is history. Moss went on to catch 98 passes and 23 touchdowns from Tom Brady in 2007, helping push New England to Super Bowl XLII.
After Green Bay missed out on Moss, Favre was irate. As Brandt tells it:
"I spent the rest of the (2007) draft listening to Bus Cook, his agent, express Favre's anger, along with threats to not show up. I knew Favre had long dreamed of playing with Moss, but I told him that Greg Jennings would be a star in time. Favre said he didn't have time. I explained our method of drafting and developing players, but it only served to deepen his resentment of a general manager who did not welcome his input the way previous regimes had."
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Strange ships-in-the-night footnote to all of this: Favre and Moss were finally brought together in 2010 with the Minnesota Vikings, but it didn't go as planned. Moss -- now with the 49ers -- was waived after four games, once again irritating Favre.
"We're 1-3 since he came in," Favre told The New York Times after Moss was cut loose in November 2010. "It's not his fault. It's all of our faults. The decision to bring him in, and to release him, was not a player decision. I was not involved either way. We have to find that chemistry, somehow, some way, to generate some kind of spark. That's what bringing in Randy was to do. It didn't work out."
Not in 2010, but we can only wonder how it might have changed the Packers back in 2007.