Will Moss exit hurt Pats this year? YEA: They’ll survive, but his stats will be missed

Back in the 1970s, disco queen Gloria Gaynor recorded the hit “I Will Survive” – with words that evoke how many New Englanders feel about Randy Moss leaving: “Now go, walk out the door, don’t turn around now, you’re not welcome anymore.”Yet Moss’ skills would have been most welcome had he stayed. Before Monday’s game with the Miami Dolphins, he showed signs of the greatness that’s characterized his career. Trading Moss is good clubhouse medicine ? but it will be the proverbial tough pill to swallow.Moss seemed poised for another dominant season in mid-September at New Meadowlands Stadium. Fifty-three seconds before halftime, Tom Brady unloaded from the New York Jets’ 34-yard line. Pursued by All-Pro Darrelle Revis, Moss reached up over his shoulder for a one-handed TD catch that put the Pats up 14-7.Of course, Moss went without a catch in the second half of that eventual 28-14 loss ? just as he went without a catch all game against Miami. There was also the complaint session after the Pats tamed the Cincinnati Bengals in the season opener. It was a deadly mix of inconsistent play on the field with bad behavior off it.That said, he showed he remains one of the greats. He became the second NFL player (after Jerry Rice) to reach 150 career receiving touchdowns. Moss has 151 after catching two scoring passes in the 38-30 win over Buffalo the last Sunday in September.Three years ago, acquiring Moss seemed like a bad idea. He had been talented but tempestuous with his first (and future) team, the Minnesota Vikings; his list of Twin Cities transgressions included bumping a traffic cop with his car. It was hard to fathom what someone so volatile could add to the Patriots.Yet he (mostly) disproved his doubters, from a record-setting 2007 season to the Buffalo game this year. The tall West Virginian, with the knack for outmuscling defenders and crowd-pleasing catches, reminded us that there is no substitute for reliable receivers. After players like Reche Caldwell and Jabar Gaffney, the Patriots got a true deep threat (they actually got two ? but did Bill Belichick really know how good Wes Welker would be?).This season, younger options emerged. In that same Jets game in which Moss made that scintillating catch, rookie tight end Aaron Hernandez finished with six grabs for 101 yards. Hernandez has twice as many catches as Moss this season. Still, the former Florida player is only four games into his NFL career, and does not have the experience that Moss has.In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, William Faulkner spoke of how humanity would not only endure, but prevail. The Patriots can endure the departure of a player whose on-field achievements were gradually outweighed by his off-field disruptiveness. The team might even prevail in the playoffs without him if Brady and Hernandez can stay in synch. Yet to claim that losing someone with 151 career touchdown catches won’t hurt the Pats? To quote the Shakespeare line that Faulkner used for his famous novel, that’s just “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”Rich Tenorio is The Item’s sports copy editor.