If true, Holy Shiite. Has there ever been a big-name athelete as in their prime as T.O. who ever tried such a thing?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/football/nfl/09/27/owens.report/index.html
ESPNhas a different take.
Give the story time to work itself out before jumping to conclusions.
Well, I hope all of you feel ashamed of yourselves, now.
On ESPN radio this morning they said he was admitted to the hospital for “an allergic reaction to pain medication” which made me think that something was pretty bad. I hope for his sake it’s not true.
As soon as I post, I see ESPN has followed suit on the suicide story.
Not my conclusion… t’was CNN’s. Or the Dallas TV channel’s.
The alleged suicide attempt sounds like bullshit to me. He’s already left the hospital. Why would he be released already if it was a suicide attempt. To me it sounds like T.O. misunderstood a question from the cops and now the press is going bonkers over nothing.
I feel sorry for the guy either way. I’ve never seen a pro athlete who’s been demonized so much for so little.
Cynic in me sees ESPN changing their story because of news media’s irrational fear of “missing” a story by doing silly things like gathering facts before reporting. Better to have the spectre of a T.O. suicide try.
JohnT, statement directed to thread in general, not to you. Hoping to prevent people jumping in with nails to hammer into T.O.'s coffin. T.O. does that well enough himself; enormous talent yet an ego which still dwarfs that talent.
You can tell I’m a Montrealer. I read the title and smiled, wondering what new and stupid thing Toronto was trying that would lead to its downfall.
So little? Really? That’s a serious stretch. I could buy maybe “who’s been demonized so much for so much,” where the degree to which he’s been demonized is greater than the degree to which he’s done wrong, but come on. It’s not like he doesn’t deserve the rep.
What has he ever done that’s really so terrible? All I’ve ever seen is a guy who busts his ass on the field, always makes plays, plays hurt and always helps teams win. He also never gets in trouble off the field. I’ve never heard of him being arrested for driving drunk or beating his wife or stabbing somebody in a nightclub. What has he really done besides performing a few imaginative and amusing touchdown celebrations or yelling at a coach once in a while? If you really try to itemize all the horrible stuff about T.O., you’ll find that there’s almost nothing there. Yet guys who beat their wives or drive drunk or get into brawls in public get virtually ignored in the press and even praised as “team players.”
The suicide seems like BS from the standpoint of most people who commit suicide don’t like themselves, have low self-esteem, etc. I think it would be rare for an egomaniac who is so in love with himself like he is, to try suicide.
Yeah, that’s what I said when the Eagles traded for him. Seriously, like word for word. And it’s mostly true, except for this – he doesn’t help his team win games in the long term. There’s a definite benefit to having him on the field, sure, but sooner or later he won’t be on the field, because he will tear the entire fucking organization limb from limb as soon as he feels slighted.
I’m sure you’ve heard all the stories about what he’s done and seen them on ESPN a thousand times, so I’m not really sure where you’re coming from there. He went after Greg Knapp; that’s a pretty big deal and it’s usually the player’s fault. He called Jeff Garcia gay and basically called him a retard in terms of quarterbacking, and then, when his every wish was granted, and he got a new contract, a new quarterback, an elite team, and an entire city that loved him – LOVED him – what did he do? He complained about not getting the ball enough in training camp. He went after his quarterback during the first loss, despite the fact that he was on pace for about the greatest individual football season ever. He bitched about the fact that McNabb said they could win the Super Bowl without him – after he was hurt, and it was clear that they were going to have to. Then he holds out, rips the entire organization, gets in a fight in the locker room, goes after his quarterback again, gets suspended, rips the organization again, bla bla bla.
His job is to play football on a team. I’m sure you understand how fragile the team dynamic can be when things go bad, even when nobody’s a colossal asshole about anything. TO is a colossal asshole about a lot of things, even when things are going good. He’s a one man Lord of the Flies scenario; you’ve got him around and all of a sudden people are sniping back and forth, there are rivalries developing, everybody’s watching what they say, people that didn’t used to have a problem with each other are suddenly saying, Hey, yeah, he is a choker, isn’t he? He’s a train wreck, and I don’t see how you could see him any other way. How would you characterize what happened during his tenure in Philly? How could it have gone more right for him?
Not to justify the disparity, but guys don’t beat their wives, drive drunk and fight on national TV, or in front of a room full of reporters. T.O.'s “bad acts” were deliberately done in a manner to ensure maximum press coverage, so it should be no surprise that they get much more coverage than other people’s acts. Also, whether or not your a “team player” depends on how you treat your team, not how you treat your wife or yourself. Badmouthing your quarterback and coach is generally not what we expect from a team player.
I do agree with you, though. Compared to many NFL players, T.O. is a hard worker and a model citizen, he’s just got a big mouth and a controversial attitude.
It may end up being something else, but here is the police report from the Smoking Gun. If it is as described there it sounds very much like a suicide attempt.
I grant that he’s got a big mouth and can be a headache in the locker room. I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve any criticism, but I still don’t think that stuff compares to the literal crimes – even violent crimes – which are so often committed by other athletes who don’t get a tenth of the public bashing that T.O. does.
Or immature kids desparate for attention.
T.O. has terrible self-esteem. He’s said it himself in his book (if I remember the dispatches at the time correctly).
He had a terrible childhood.
Also, I think **DtC **is wrong about him. Never has the term “a cancer to the team” been more applicable than it is to this guy. He intentionally enjoys disrupting otherwise well-functioning teams, seemingly for more attention.
That’s not a REAL thing like beating your wife, but it’s as bad as it gets within the structure of team sport. That’s what he gets judged on.
It’s not just yelling at coaches. It’s disobeying coaches, criticizing teammates in the media (even hinting at another player’s sexuality), creating an atmosphere of sloth. He’s a terrible, terrible teammate.
That’s kind of a tacky insinuation, don’t you think? You don’t know why he did this.
If it is a suicide attempt - that’s a big “if,” because if it is indeed true, once Rosenhaus and the affiliated sharks get involved, it’ll be spun as an accident, misunderstanding, etc. - then I do feel bad for the guy.
Does anyone remember him from before the Sharpie/Dallas star/Jeff Garcia stuff? He was a solid player who had a rep for spectacular catches (I remember him getting decked by a safety and a DB simultaneously in the end zone on the last play of a game, but he held on to the ball). I remember they did a bit on ESPN with him pretending to run for governor of CA. Pretty funny stuff, actually.
Then the Garcia stuff, the grievance because his agent “forgot” to file the FA paperwork, the Baltimore deal, and the ugly mess in Philly. For this guy it’s been one train wreck after another. I think it’s rapidly gotten out of hand, and having a guy like Rosenhaus as your number one advocate isn’t helping the cause. When I saw this thing unfolding, I thought immediately, “That guy needs a mentor, not Bob Sugar.”
When he talks about his childhood it definitely sounds as if he wasn’t very happy. He didn’t, and doesn’t seem to be able to garner attention for doing right, so now he’s villified for every action he takes, good, bad or neutral. He reminds me of kids I used to teach who acted out to get attention, because they were so desperate for it. You know how sometimes the satisfaction of doing a job is good enough for most of us? Neglected kids don’t see it that way. They have to get attention for everything they do… and at a certain point it gets to be way too much to handle.
I buy the idea that he’s probably quite unhappy, and very sad to see that he is one of the most disliked guys in the sports world. A wiser, older guy might have told him to cool it, to change agents - but I think people like Rosenhaus kept telling him, “You’re in the right, this is great for your career…” and the end result is a guy on one-year contracts, with millions in endorsement deals evaporated overnight, where he could have ended up like Deon Sanders or Ray Lewis, guys who had bad reps at one point in their careers but are looked to as great players first and sideshows second. At this point in his career T.O. should have a nice fat contract, shooting for NFL records, and being loved by the fans. He probably looks at what could have been and thinks, “Boy, I fucked that up, didn’t I?”
Dio’s point is well taken; however, he pretty much did the unthinkable in a team sport - throwing fellow players under the bus in a pretty public manner. Multiple times. He took a team with a pretty good sense of oneness, the Eagles, and created a huge rift in the locker room. It probably didn’t help that he was looking across the room at the golden boy McNabb, a middle-class Black guy with a good sense of self-esteem and (deserved or not) the lion’s share of attention and adoration in the city. I work in a collaborative environment, and I don’t know what most people do outside work… but if you come to work and cannot play well with others, that puts you pretty much on the shit list with me.