Randy Moss has caught 975 passes in his NFL career, but he had never caught a ball thrown as hard as the one 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick hit him with in Kaepernick’s first start.
Moss said today that he suffered a finger dislocation in the 49ers’ November 19 win over the Bears because a pass from Kaepernick was thrown so hard. Moss said that had never happened to him before.
“Man, he dislocated my finger,” Moss said, via CSNBayArea.com. "[H]e had to put one them Randy Johnson fastballs on me. When it hit my finger, I felt my finger pop -- dislocated it. So I had to come back to the sideline and the doctor had to pop it back in.”
The 35-year-old Moss said he has been able to stay very healthy this season after returning from a year away -- other than getting in the way of that Kaepernick fastball.
“I try to take pride in taking care of my body and finessing the balls as they come to me,” Moss said. “But Kap throws hard. He’s very strong and he works out every day. And I didn’t really say anything to him other than, ‘Keep doing what he’s doing.’ My finger will heal up. It hurt. It hurt. It really did. I tried not to show any tears. I don’t know if they caught me crying or not. But it did hurt, but like I said, it’s not the time of the year to be crying because it’s late in the season. Everybody’s hurting. Everybody’s ailing. Everybody’s feeling a little bit of pain. Some go home and some keep moving. And we want to be the team that keeps moving.”
In addition to being impressed with Kaepernick’s arm strength, Moss has been impressed with Kaepernick’s leadership abilities.
“I think that Kap’s been able to come in and lead us as a whole unit,” Moss said. “Any time a guy can come in and lead like that, and I don’t mean verbally, I mean leading by example, it’s what we as football players look for in a player, especially a quarterback. So I really just compliment his leadership and going out there and leading our offense up and down the field.”
But as much as Moss likes Kaepernick, he wouldn’t mind seeing Kaepernick put a little more touch on his passes.