Santana Moss: "I'm just getting tired of it"

With nine seconds remaining Sunday, veteran receiver Santana Moss had every right to believe he had scored the game-tying touchdown against Tampa Bay. The Redskins had pulled within a point, and all that remained was the extra point to tie.

What happened next has already been well-documented - long-snapper Nick Sundberg sent the snap a bit high, and punter Hunter Smith couldn't get it down. The Redskins lost, 17-16, and afterward Moss - in his sixth season with the team - made it clear how frustrated he is.

"It's your job to come out here and play this game of football," Moss said, occasionally halting in his speech. "When you're playing this game, you're playing this game to win. Somebody got to win; somebody got to lose. But when you're just losing, and you know that you had a chance to win - I ain't talking about the last play. I'm just talking about throughout the game, throughout the years, throughout the weeks, throughout this year.

"When you're losing and you ain't got no say-so why," and he paused for several seconds. "That's why it hurts. That's why I feel the way I feel, because I'm just getting tired of it. Everybody play for their own perspective and their own reasons, but I put too much in it, and it means too much."

In his time with the Redskins, Moss has enjoyed two winning seasons - both under Joe Gibbs. And he is familiar with a theme that permeates Washington's locker room: The talent is there, but they haven't put it together. Whether that is true or not, Moss is 31 years old, and he realizes chances for sustained success are being frittered away.

"That's the thing that hurts the most," Moss said. "Opportunities come and go. Whether you're young, whether you been here a couple years or whether you're old, most of the guys know in here that this opportunity won't always be around for this team as far as individuals, for these coaches, for anybody that's going through this. Week-in, week-out, you see people come and go, and year-in, year-out you see people come and go.

"When you keep getting opportunities, and you're saying like, 'Wow, we're blessed. We keep getting opportunities. But what's opportunities when you don't come through? You can't keep getting chances."

Moss pledged to keep working over the remaining three weeks of the season. But the pain in his voice was obvious.

"I've been wishing for so long to where I'm just going to keep on wishing," he said. "I just hope, man, something good come out of this, whether it's this year or down the road. I feel like we're too good right now as a team to settle for what we settle for week-in and week-out. True and all, we played a good team, and you got to tip your hat off to them.

"But it's a lot of games that I've seen us just lose the game, and this year been to me more than any year, but when it all adds up, it just don't make no sense. I just hope as a team we can just pull it through. We got three games left, and I mean, for sure I'm going to go out there and play my heart out every week, but something got to come out of this, you know?"

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(washingtonpost.com)