mhendo brings up an interesting point that’s understandably not getting much play. The Eagles organization absolutely mishandled the hell out of this situation.
Before anybody starts reading, um, this has been brewing for a while, so once I get rolling I’m probably going to go on and on and on, and it’ll probably have little to do with bashing TO, which is what this thread’s about, so, sorry.
Flash back to before the team acquired Owens. Obviously, the Eagles knew that he was a total asshole who wouldn’t hesitate to rip his teammates and do his best to disrupt everything around him. They also knew that they had to hurry the fuck up and get a receiver before they were no longer a championship caliber team on other fronts. So they decided to take the gamble, and as far as I’m concerned, that was the right decision. It seemed clear to me that the organization wanted him on the team for last year, and only last year, and that they would keep him around for the 05-06 season or until there was serious trouble, whichever came first.
Like I said, I was all for it then, and nothing happened to change my mind – he turned a mediocre offense into an unstoppable offense. People who say that they didn’t need TO, they just needed a slight upgrade at the spot weren’t paying attention to how the Eagles lost those three straight NFC championships. Eagles receivers could be completely locked down by a good defense in previous years. The second Owens stepped on the field, everything changed. McNabb was a better quarterback, each receiver found it much easier to get open, and the defense was able to pin back its ears with the early leads. It was a perfect match in football terms, so they absolutely did not make a mistake in trading for this bastard. Here’s where Reid and Co. fucked up, though – they gave him their typical nickel-and-dime contract offer. It’s all well and good that they have this reputation for fiscal responsiblity, and that they feel like they have the blueprint for success – overpay tackles, defensive backs, quarterback and defensive ends, replenish ahead of time via the draft and cut everybody over 30 years old who wants a payday, etc. It’s also fantastic that they can sit firmly on the high ground and point to the fact that TO signed the contract, but they had to know that a 2005 salary of $3.5 million wasn’t going to make Owens happy when it came down to it. They needed to bite the bullet one time and pay the guy 8 million the first year, 8 million the second year, or something like that, then cut him loose like they were planning to do anyway. They’re 11 million under the cap right now, for fuck’s sake – if you aren’t going to keep Corey Simon around then why the hell can’t TO have three million of that in base salary this year so he’ll (sort of) shut his fucking mouth? When you get in bed with a prostitute, you know what you’re getting into, and calling her a whore at the end of the night just makes you look silly.
From my perspective, Eagles poisoned their own well by leveraging that weird arbitration situation to get Owens on the cheap, when they had to know that they were shaking hands with the devil. Last year, TO was happy, the Eagles were happy, and if Owens didn’t break his leg, you have to say that they would have had a pretty good chance to win the Super Bowl. All according to the plan, except for Roy Williams being a bitch. Then this offseason, Drew Rosenhaus enters the picture and says Hey TO, baby, you’re worth more than 3.5, aren’t you? which led to the holdout, the suspension, the sports media forcefeeding TO inflammatory questions like they were going to sell his liver, the unbelievably childish and misguided efforts by the organization to freeze TO out but keep him on the field, including not announcing the 100th touchdown – did you know that Owens’ likeness doesn’t appear on any of the Eagles media materials, signs in the stadium, or any of the little video screen highlights packages? and here we are now. Obviously, it’s ultimately TO’s fault because he’s a cock, but his being a cock was a pre-existing condition, and the Eagles chose to treat him like they had no idea about his, er, eccentricities.
I do want to point out that this TO situation, while it’s certainly closely paralleled the mini-decline of the team, isn’t exactly the source of the problems. First of all, Donovan McNabb is hurt. Hurt badly. So, step one, we start with the franchise quarterback experiencing a lot of discomfort every time he makes any kind of core movement of his body. Step two, Correll Buckhalter and Todd Pinkston both go out for the season, so any thoughts of a straight-ahead running game, however minimal they were to begin with, are out, and the receiving corps besides Terrell Owens has about a half-season in combined NFL experience. Step three, a very important step, the head coach has lost his mind, and we’re going to throw the ball sixty times a game (go look at step one again, and think about step three). OK, step four, an excellent young return specialist tears his knee to shreds, the special teams captain leaves via free agency, another key special teamer moves into a starting linebacker spot, your Pro Bowl kicker tears his hamstring and now the punter’s out for the season – special teams goes from a huge strength to a glaring weakness. Step five, what else? The defense takes a big step backwards, allowing big pass plays where it never did in the passing game, possibly due to the fact that Corey Simon is cut just for the hell of it, Derrick Burgess leaves for big money in Oakland, and Jerome McDougle gets SHOT, and Jevon Kearse stops being Jevon Kearse, evidently. In other words, no pass rush. Plus the division is finally improving. All in all, it’s no wonder the season has been a complete disaster – and then you look again and the team is 4-3.