“That is a disgusting act!” We all remember where we were when a shocked Joe Buck exclaimed those words nearly 19 years ago to describe Randy Moss’ fake mooning of Packers fans at Lambeau Field.
Okay, maybe we don’t all remember where we were when we heard it. But that call is widely known and lives in the lore of the Packers-Vikings rivalry to this day. However, as Joe Buck recently admitted, if Moss were playing today and was to do that “disgusting act,” he would handle it differently.
First, for those living in a cave in 2005, here is a young Joe Buck describing Randy Moss’ fake mooning of Packers fans after scoring a touchdown in an NFC Wild-Card matchup on January 9, 2005.
January 9, 2005: @RandyMoss catches a TD in an NFC Wild Card Matchup in Green Bay and tops it off with a moon shot celebration that Joe Buck from finds extremely offensive. The Vikings won 31-17.
“That is a disgusting act by Randy Moss” pic.twitter.com/EJjINdkURC
— This Day In Sports Clips (@TDISportsClips) January 9, 2021
First of all, how many of you remember that Buck, Aikman, and Collinsworth all used to man a booth together? I had forgotten that Collinsworth was in on this historic moment. Anyway, I digress.
With the 19th anniversary of Moss’ fake mooning approaching and Buck in town to call the Vikings-Bears game on Monday Night Football, the longtime broadcaster was asked by Purple Daily about that call and said that, in retrospect, his reaction seemed a bit “over the top.”
“If it were today,” Buck told the SKOR North podcast, “I think in a different atmosphere, I don’t think those words would have come out of my mouth.”
It’s interesting that Buck believes a “different atmosphere” would have changed his reaction. For sure, the “atmosphere” today is different than it was in 2005. And by different, I mean demonstrably worse by nearly every objective measure. What Moss did almost 19 years ago was disgusting. Buck wasn’t wrong for calling it that. The only reason why it hits differently when he hears that call now is that we’ve become so accustomed to disgusting acts in our sports, entertainment, and just about every venue of public life that it just sounds strange to react to that in such a strident way.
But that’s not progress, of course. That’s a sign that our culture has become desensitized to depravity.
But maybe this is a conversation for a different time.
Certainly, what Randy Moss did does not set off the cultural rot that permeates every institution in our country today. But Joe Buck’s reaction today would change because our culture’s sense of what is “disgusting” has changed, not because what Randy Moss did wasn’t disgusting.