I don't know how many more times I'm going to be up here in New England, but I'm going to leave the New England Patriots and Coach Belichick with a salute. I love you guys, I miss you. I'm out.

-- Randy Moss on Sunday, wrapping up his second surreal Gillette Stadium press conference of the season.

Funny what a month of Brad Childress and Brett Favre will do to a guy.

Randy Moss told the media after the game Sunday that he wasn't going to answer any questions for the rest of the year. Not happy with being fined $25,000 a couple of weeks ago, he let everyone know that only Randy Moss would conduct an interview of Randy Moss. 

Let's put aside the fact that Moss did next to nothing on the field Sunday (one catch, eight yards) and at least give him this: As an interviewer, he was able to get a confession out of his subject. And the confession, of course, is that Randy Moss -- just 25 days after being traded -- knows that he was wrong to do whatever it was he did to get tossed out of The House of Belichick.

This is no disrespect to the Minnesota Vikings and their organization. The captains, Wilfork, Tommy Boy, Kevin Faulk, I miss them guys. I miss the team …  I know what they're doing, success they had on the field with the running game. I kind of know what type of feeling is in their locker room and I want to be able to tell they guys that I miss the hell out of them, every last helmet in that locker room.

Just look at the language. The Minnesota Vikings and "their" organization. Which organization does he belong to, exactly?

Yep, Randy Moss was traded to the Vikings on October 6. So somewhere between arriving in Minnesota the next day and his press conference on Sunday a light dawned and he realized that Brad Childress isn't Belichick, that Brett Favre isn't Tom Brady (more like Kenny Powers, really) and that Zygi Wilf isn't Bob Kraft. There's a Super Bowl team taking shape in Foxboro and a ship sinking so fast in Minnesota that Billy Zane was pushing people out of the way in the Vikings locker room after the game.

And now instead of being a guy who doesn't get the ball quite as much as he used to on a team that has the best record in the NFL, Moss is now a guy who doesn't get the ball quite as much as he used to for a team that has the 12th-best record in the NFC. And the real reason Moss wanted out? A contract extension. He wasn't going to get one from the Patriots.

Well, it's been four games with the Vikings for Moss, and he has 13 catches and the team is 1-3. Pretty sure they'll be starting over next year with a new coach and QB. It's hard to believe that there will be a place for a 34-year-old receiver with skills in decline. The truth? A newly humbled Moss has a much better chance of being with the Patriots than with the Vikings in 2011.

(Not impossible, by the way. I don't think Belichick holds any grudge toward Moss. Just business. They didn't want to pay Moss what he felt he deserved and they didn't want to deal with how Moss was going to deal with that reality. But if circumstances change and Moss would be willing to take a one- or two-year deal at a much-lower number I think the Pats might be OK with that, I really do. Does that scenario strike anyone as totally improbable?)

Coach Belichick gave me an opportunity to [be] part of something special and I really take to heart and I salute Coach Belichick and the Patriots for the success they had before me, during me and after me. I'm actually stuck for words. 

This is how it goes when you get to the grass and realize it's actually not so green after all. Probably there was a day on the set of "Jade" when David Caruso took a look around and thought, "This might be a mistake." 

Moss spent a good deal of time Sunday taking not-so-veiled shots at Brad Childress. He suggested that the Vikings should have kicked a field goal at the end of the first half instead of going for it on fourth-and-goal from inside the one-yard line. He called out his teammates -- and by extension the coaching staff -- for not listening when he told them what the Patriots would do on offense. And by lavishing praise on Belichick -- Moss referred to him as "best coach in football history" -- he pretty much buried Childress, who clearly has lost the veterans in the Minnesota locker room.

I can't really say enough about this team and this organization. 

Too late for this year, Randy. About a month too late. You forgot that you once had Mike Tice and Norv Turner as coaches and Andrew Walter and Aaron Brooks as quarterbacks. You forgot what it seemed you knew in 2007 and 2008 and even most of 2009 -- that when it comes to the Patriots, one guy is never bigger than the team. And I wonder if you even forgot that Bill Belichick isn't going to play games with the chemistry of a team. 

So for this year it'll be playing out the string, maybe with Brett Favre, maybe with Tavaris Jackson. And when the Patriots are playing in January the Vikings will be crafting a press release thanking Moss for what he did for the organization and wishing him luck in the future. 

Do I know what next season and the future is going to bring? No, I do not.

Another confession. As an interviewer, Randy Moss had a good day on Sunday. Too bad he wasn't able to get to the truth with such ease a month ago. Both he and the Patriots might be better off.