Davis

FOXBORO — Raiders owner Al Davis doesn’t take many opportunities these days to address the media. So apparently, when he held a news conference on Tuesday to announce the firing of head coach Lane Kiffin, he used the time to get everything off his chest that’s been bothering him for the last few years.

He saved his Patriots-related vitriol for after his meandering, 48-minute news conference. Once the cameras were off, he told a group of print reporters that New England tampered with Randy Moss before the trade the sent the receiver to the Pats last year.

Asked why Oakland traded Moss if Davis felt he was still a good player, the 79-year-old said the new coaching staff, headed by Kiffin, didn’t want him. Then, unprovoked, he added:

“Plus, you know how many teams turned him down. That guy in Green Bay thought he couldn’t run any more,” Davis said. “Even Denver, where they’ll take anybody, turned him down.

“But what’s-his-name knew he could run. He’s a friend of Belichick’s. Mike Lombardi. Mike sold what’s-his-name, Belichick, on the idea that (Moss) could run. They tampered with him. I remember [Patriots owner] Bob Kraft saying that he had to look him in the eye and all that. They went down and worked him out; he could run. He’s their team, of course, with the quarterback.”

Lombardi was a personnel executive with the Raiders who was fired on May 9, 2007, just days after the Moss trade on draft weekend last year.

Yesterday, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick gave a wry smile when Davis’ name and comments were brought up, but declined to talk about them, saying, “Right now, our focus is on the 49ers.”

In an e-mail yesterday, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said, “No tampering charges have ever been filed with our office with respect to Randy Moss.”

That begs the question: if Davis thought the Patriots had done something wrong 17 months ago when the deal was made, why didn’t he alert the league office?

In a conference call with San Francisco media, Belichick was asked about how the Moss deal went down.

“I’ve told the story about Randy many, many times,” Belichick said. “The first time I ever talked to Randy was the Sunday morning of the second day of the draft last year. That is the first time I met him, the first time I talked to him. No, there was no workout. There was no other contact with him.”

Moss was asked if he wanted to comment yesterday and said, “Nah. Not at all.”

On the day of the trade, which was finalized just before selections began for the second day of the 2007 draft, Belichick explained the deal:

“It was a situation last night where we talked to the Raiders after the draft (Saturday night). We felt like if we were going to do a pick that was in today’s round that we would need to get that rolling last night and the wheels started spinning pretty fast. Mr. Davis gave us permission to speak with the player and his representatives, so that happened last night. I talked with Randy, and he came in this morning and we got that taken care of.”

Belichick said at the time that the first time he had ever spoken with Moss was late that Saturday night, once the Patriots had gotten permission from the Raiders to speak with him and his agent.

Among his other comments, Davis said the 2002 Snow Bowl/Tuck Rule playoff game in Foxboro “was the undoing of a lot of things,” although it was unclear whether he was talking about his relationship with then-coach Jon Gruden or the franchise as a whole.

A thoughtful Moss

Moss held court with the media for a few minutes yesterday, which was unexpected, but the receiver gave his usual frank and thoughtful answers. Among the questions he fielded: whether his confidence in quarterback Matt Cassel is growing.

“Well, I think that, first of all, he has to believe in himself,” Moss said. “I think it will trickle on down to the whole offense. We have seen Matt progress in these last couple of weeks quicker than we expected him to. We just have to put guys around him. With the 10 guys we put around him, we have to make it happen. Not really everything is on him or his shoulders; he has to be smart and distribute the ball, but at the same time there are still 11 guys out there that have to get the job done. We like what we are doing as a whole offensive unit, and hopefully we can keep it going.”

Quick kicks

New England released its first participation report of the week, and there were three players on it, all listed as not having taken part in the day’s practice, held inside the Dana-Farber Fieldhouse in full pads: LB Eric Alexander (hamstring), CB Lewis Sanders (hamstring) and WR Kelley Washington (ankle). After missing several days, T Mark LeVoir returned to the field, as did CB Jonathan Wilhite, who was sent home on Monday due to illness … In his conference call with San Francisco media, Cassel was asked for his memories of Niners QB J.T. O’Sullivan during his brief stay here in 2006: “He was a great guy. He worked really hard, and you talk about a guy who has been through some ups and downs. I couldn’t be happier for him.” O’Sullivan has been with eight teams over seven seasons.

smanza@projo.com