In the moment, on Jan. 9, 2005, all we knew was that Vikings receiver Randy Moss had just hauled in a crucial touchdown in a playoff game against the Packers at Lambeau Field, a 34-yard score that put the Vikings ahead by the eventual final score of 31-17.
He then ran over near the goalposts, turned his back to the partisan Green Bay crowd, and pretended like he was mooning them.
Joe Buck, then the play-by-play voice for Fox, took in everything that was happening and had this memorable thing to say: “That is a disgusting act by Randy Moss. And it’s unfortunate that we had that on our air live.”
Vikings fans, some of whom already didn’t care for Buck, developed a more intense dislike for him — the residue of which remains to this day.
But the context of the moment has been fleshed out over the years. And with the benefit of — so sorry for the pun — hindsight, maybe we should view it differently?
Moss has explained his side of what happened fairly recently, expressing no regrets. Buck? He really wishes he could have a do-over, as I talked about on Thursday’s Daily Delivery podcast.
In an interview this week, Buck — who has talked about the call before in similar but maybe not so absolute terms — was asked this question: If you could go back in time and redo one call, what would it be?
Without hesitation, he brought up the “disgusting act” call after the Moss touchdown. He talked about how he and Moss later became friendly through overlapping media jobs and then said this: