Patriots put Moss "on notice" with their comments.

As many of you know, I have to be up bright and early (by my standards) on Mondays to join old friend Peter Gay on the radio (WARL, 1320 AM) at 6:55 a.m. for our weekly segment on The Sun Chronicle News Hour. This morning's topic, among others, was the play of Patriots' wide receiver Randy Moss in Sunday's 20-10 win over Carolina, which was uninspired.

The more I think about what I heard after the game, the more I realized that Moss' teammates share the oft-stated concern that he may be checking out mentally from games in which he receives a lot of defensive attention, and Tom Brady starts throwing to others as a result.

They didn't come out and say "Randy's dogging it," as many media members might, because I'm sure there are issues afoot that they don't share with us. I suspect that Moss' back is troubling him more than he lets on -- not enough to place him on the injury report, perhaps, but possibly enough to make him about 85 percent of what he can be at his peak performance.

Let's also not forget that Moss, who will be 33 on Feb. 13, is no longer a spring chicken by athletic standards. Age is everyone's Kryptonite. Maybe Moss is learning that he can no longer leap tall buildings with a single bound, and it's troubling him.

Perhaps that's enabling the enigmatic wideout from Marshall, but I want to believe what the players have said for the two-plus seasons Moss has been here -- that he's been a good teammate, a hard worker, worthy of the captaincy they bestowed upon him. There are some jackals in the media corps who live for the opportunity to blast Moss at every turn, and I don't want to be one of them -- even though there's no benefit to me because Moss ignores all of us.

Sunday, however, those same teammates felt the need to call out Moss for a lackluster performance against the Panthers (one catch, fumbled away; a false-start penalty, poorly-run routes and a general level of disinterest in the wake of his punishment for being tardy to Wednesday morning's meetings). They didn't do it by criticizing Moss, but by going a little over the top in their praise for fellow receiver Wes Welker.

You can read some of the comments in this story I wrote for Page One of The Sun Chronicle today. They keep mentioning how much "heart" Welker had for going over the middle, catching the tough passes, taking a beating and continuing to move the stakes.

What I found curious about that is that everyone on this football-loving planet knows that Wes Welker has "heart." Mentioning it repeatedly almost sounded excessive, until I realized that this was the way that Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, Kevin Faulk and others were telling Randy Moss that Welker was setting the example that he should emulate. They were telling Moss, "Hey, big fella, don't check out on us now. We need for you to be there over the next three weeks and beyond."

Randy Moss has had it good in New England. He's been shielded from the media and encouraged to succeed at every turn. He's set NFL records and may have polished his image enough to settle questions about his worthiness for the Hall of Fame. And you know what? I've come to believe that maybe the excesses of his youth that saddled him with the reputation of being a "bad guy" were exactly that -- immaturity, and child's play compared to some of the transgressions that make it to print about other athletes these days.

Still, I think there's still a bit of immaturity left in Moss, particularly when things aren't going well for him in a game. He has the capability of taking his ball and going home at that point, and his teammates were reminding him -- in as gentle a way as is possible in the NFL -- that they need an adult Randy Moss to help lead them on what may be the last legitimate quest for a Super Bowl for these Patriots as they are constructed now.

If Moss is as smart as he appears to be, he should take the message to heart.