GREEN BAY, Wis. -- A year ago, Dale Moss had just completed a successful college basketball career and was applying for marketing jobs with casinos in Las Vegas. Now, he's the newest wide receiver on the Green Bay Packers.
The improbable journey for Moss started when the football coaching staff at South Dakota State continually joked with him around campus about staying in college for a fifth year. Knowing that Moss had played wide receiver during his junior and senior seasons in high school, the football coaches saw his 6-foot-4, 218-pound frame and thought he could be a significant addition to their team.
But, at the time, Moss wasn't interested.
"When it got down to my senior season and I was done with basketball, I just wanted to get done with school," Moss said in a phone interview. "As I thought about it more, I knew that I'd hate to sit and think ‘What if?' So, I decided I was going to go with it."
Moss extended his classes and pushed back his graduation date, put his basketball shoes in the closet, grabbed a helmet and stepped onto a football field for the first time in four years.
After spending his 2010-11 senior season working on his jump shot as the starting small forward for the South Dakota State Jackrabbits basketball team, Moss started to make the adjustment to football.
"In the spring when I went out, I was really raw but I could make plays on the ball," Moss said. "I could make a ton of tough catches because I had good hands. In fall camp, I was night and day just a completely different player."
But even a much-improved performance in fall camp wasn't enough to convince the coaching staff to give Moss some playing time early in the season. Moss sat on the sidelines for the first two games of South Dakota State's season, a period of time that he said was "really frustrating."
However, an injury to one of the team's starting wide receivers in their third game created an opportunity for Moss to play, and he stepped in and finished with more than 100 yards receiving. Moss ended up leading the conference in receiving yards and tied for the lead in receptions over the final nine games of the season.
Had Moss not committed to South Dakota State for basketball so early in his high school career, he would have had his pick of several colleges that had offered him scholarships. Moss even thought about foregoing all scholarship offers -- for both football and basketball -- and trying out as a walk-on at a Big Ten or Big 12 school. But, due to family reasons, he chose to honor his commitment to South Dakota State's basketball program and go to school about an hour from his hometown.
"There were family things that I was thankful I was around for," Moss said. "My mom got diagnosed with liver failure and had to have a transplant, and I was able to be around. I was able to be with her. Had I been at a different place, I maybe wouldn't have been able to be around. I feel like everything happens for a reason."
Moss was not invited to the NFL Combine, but his very strong Pro Day results and measurements caught the attention of plenty of teams, including Green Bay. At Moss' size, which is bigger than every current Packers receiver, he still had a 41½-inch vertical and a 4.51 40-yard dash time.
But it wasn't enough to be one of the 253 players selected.
"I was expecting to be drafted, I'm not gonna lie," Moss said. "When I wasn't drafted, I was pretty upset. But I was over the whole upset part of not being drafted right after I knew I was going to go to Green Bay. It worked out well."
The Packers were one of 10 teams that tried to sign Moss as a non-drafted free agent, including the Bears, Saints, Texans, Seahawks and Bengals.
"After breaking down situations with different teams, even though Green Bay has a lot of good receivers, they had a good track record of free agents making the team," Moss said.
And that is Moss' expectation, to make the Packers' active roster as a rookie. With Greg Jennings, Jordy Nelson, Randall Cobb and James Jones all shoo-ins to make the team at wide receiver, plus the possibility of Donald Driver returning and last year's practice-squad standouts Tori Gurley and Diondre Borel getting serious looks, it will be difficult for Moss to accomplish that goal. But for Moss, he's embracing the challenge.
"I understand there's a lot of things working against me, but I feel confident in my abilities," Moss said. "I still have a lot of upside. I'm looking forward to proving a lot of people wrong. (The Packers) might take six receivers, or something like that.
"Worst case scenario, I don't make the active roster, I'd still get a chance to develop for a little while. They have some established receivers, so me coming in undrafted as a rookie, I don't feel they'll view it as a threat and I can learn a lot from them."
If Moss had not second-guessed himself a year ago, there's a chance that he would've been hired for a casino marketing job in Las Vegas. Instead, his job description now includes catching passes from NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers.
"When I get the first pass, I better not drop it," Moss said. "It'll be pretty cool playing with a quarterback of that level. After a few snaps, just being around him, it's just going to become second nature.
"I feel really fortunate to be a part of this Packers team."
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