At his first Patriots minicamp, wideout Randy Moss looked like a new man. Can a player disparaged for his work ethic succeed in an all-for-one ethos?

	Randy Moss spread nothing but good vibes in his first minicamp with the Patriots. Jim Rogash/WireImage.com

At his first Patriots minicamp, wideout Randy Moss looked like a new man. Can a player disparaged for his work ethic succeed in an all-for-one ethos?

It's a familiar NFL tale: Fading star who dogged it or drugged it or talked his way out of one town gets reborn in another, earning one last chance to erase his past and show that, really, he's been a winner all along. The latest protagonist is wide receiver Randy Moss, who, after two unproductive years with the woeful Oakland Raiders, has a new lease on life with the three-time champion New England Patriots.

Moss can be a lot of things -- petulant, defiant of authority, the first guy to jump off a sinking ship -- but stupid he is not. He is 30 now, no longer the Hall of Fame-bound receiver he appeared to be in his first seven seasons, with the Minnesota Vikings. Everyone from Bar Harbor to Block Island will be monitoring his behavior with the Pats, who acquired him for a fourth-round pick in the draft two months ago. Every eye in his own locker room will be on him too. "He knows if he blows this opportunity," says strong safety and defensive leader Rodney Harrison, "no team's going to touch him."

Moss needed to show up in New England this spring and make a good impression. In his first six weeks as a Patriot he has made a great one.

At 2 a.m. on April 29 coach Bill Belichick called Moss in Houston and informed him that he would have to accept a $6.25 million reduction in his $9.25 million base salary and undergo a physical in Boston within 10 hours if he wanted to be a Patriot. Moss immediately agreed to the pay cut and hired a private plane to rush him to New England. He also changed two weeks of personal plans for early May so that he could attend the Pats' off-season program, though he was not ordered to do so by Belichick. At New England's Organized Team Activities -- practices without pads that NFL teams hold each spring -- Moss felt he was lagging in conditioning drills, so when the Patriots took the last week of May off, he stayed in Foxborough for four days of aerobic work.

Last week, at the Patriots' minicamp, Moss snagged passes from quarterback Tom Brady before one practice, bouncing around on the balls of his feet, simulating game action by catching the ball and tucking it in while other receivers nonchalantly warmed up. "Juices startin' to flow!" he said to Brady. "Oh, yeah!"

The quarterback was impressed. "On the second day of OTAs," Brady said at the close of minicamp, "Randy goes to run a crossing route. He sprints up the field and starts to make his cut across the field when I throw it. I'm aiming for a window between two linebackers, but it's not a perfect throw. It's going to be a tough catch to make. And here comes Randy, diving for the ball to come up with the catch. Here's this 6' 4'', 210-pound guy in shorts and no pads, diving for a ball in an OTA practice in the middle of May. Who does that? I'm standing back there thinking, Wow. This guy wants it."