Terell Owens shoots himself in the foot yet again

The BBQ Pit
101

The problem with these teams is that, to put it bluntly, they’re losers. If you want to keep him minimally disruptive, T.O. has to play for a winner. He’d have to go to a team that’s right on the brink of being top-tier, but just needs that last piece - the situation he was in when he originally signed with the Eagles. If you look at it that way, Atlanta would be a possible destination. They’re tied for first in a competitive division, and they’re fresh out of receiving talent. They could benefit a lot from T.O.'s play.

The organization would have to decide if they think they could rein him in. I don’t think they could - Mora’s still a pretty young coach, and they don’t really have a strong veteran in the locker room who could (try to) keep him focused. Vick’s none to accurate a passer, either, and he’s one of the few QBs that can rival McNabb as far as media focus. Owens would throw a fit there.

Realistically, there are two teams I could see signing him: Oakland and Dallas. Oakland’s an easy option - Owens is an immense pain in the ass, and Al Davis loves guys who are an immense pain in the ass. Having to gameplan for both Owens and Moss would give coordinators fits, especially with Jordan and Crockett in the backfield.

Dallas (or more specifically, Parcells) handles assholes well - probably because he can relate to them. He’s never been afraid to take on problem players, and he’s had some pretty good success with them. In 8 games, Keyshawn Johnson and Terry Glenn have combined for more than 1100 yards and 8 TDs - pretty good production out of two problem players. On the other hand, the Cowboys’ “problem wideout” roster slot is already overflowing; I’m not sure they’d add another. Parcells’ controversial signings are also usually players he’s coached before - he had Johnson with the Jets and Glenn with the Pats.

So I’d guess Oakland is more likely than Dallas. Given a chance, I think Davis woul pull the trigger on Owens in a heartbeat. He’d probably have to trade Jerry Porter, who signed a five year extension this winter, but I don’t think he’d have much trouble finding a taker for him. The move would leave Norv Turner a hollow shell of a man, but that’s not going to stop Davis.

THe only thing is - this move won’t make Oakland a winner. Paying both Moss and Owens, as well as free agent contracts to Collins and Jordan, they won’t have enough money to put a defense on the field. Imagining that team reminds me of the pre-2005 Colts or some of Mike Martz’ Rams teams - consistent winners in the regular season, but can’t hold up against strong defenses in the playoffs.

102

Gotta disagree with you here, Ock. I see it as a “fool me once” situation. His behavior with SF could be passed off as just a problem with that one team. Now that he’s done the exact same damn thing with the Eagles, I don’t see how anyone can expect him to do anything different with whatever poor desperate bastards wind up with him. He is a poison that nobody needs to administer to their locker room.

103

Well the point is really that it is hard to justify him playing ANYWHERE, even Oakland. It is hard to imagine any team wanting to put up with him, but if backed in a corner, I personally see the Broncos as likely as any team…which is not likely at all.

104

Can’t quite agree with you on this. The Pats’ receivers are harldy stellar. Pinkston, Lewis, even Mitchell stack up fairly well against those guys. Branch may be the best of the bunch, but does he really scare anybody?
No doubt the iggles getting TO made them bunches better, but they weren’t really “firmly behind” with the guys they had before. Those guys got them through the playoffs, even winning the Championship game they’d lost the prior 3 times. Those scrubs were enough good enough to get that done. I just think TO was a bit more of a luxury than a neccessity. They swung for the fences, and and took a chance on a piece of shit to do it. You mentioned Price before, I was also surprised they didn’t make a bigger play for him.

Not sure why it’s a cheap shot to make what at the time was a perfectly legal tackle. He should just let the guy go? Throw himself at his legs like that Philly player did to Julius Jones this season? And while it may have been somewhat more likely to cause an injury, it was hardly “more often than not”. I don’t think more than half the time someone did that resulted in an injury. But they changed the rule, and he doesn’t do it anymore. So everybody wins. :slight_smile:

I agree completely about having a really good chance with him healthy, but I didn’t see him even at 80% in that game. And limited, I still think he was hurting them some particularly in the red zone. He just couldn’t get open down there. I also still think they might have been better off going more with a healthier Lewis or even Mitchell, but I suppose I could be wrong (that one is for Marley23 as well). But yes, healthy? Quite a good chance.

And while I do feel your pain on this and I want to sympathize, I still can’t help being a little too pleased at their misfortune. Most likely makes me a bad person, but there it is. If it makes you feel any better, as much as I wish they wouldn’t they will come back from this. May be next year, but they have too much talent left not to.

105

[QUOTE=Enginerd]
The problem with these teams is that, to put it bluntly, they’re losers. If you want to keep him minimally disruptive, T.O. has to play for a winner. He’d have to go to a team that’s right on the brink of being top-tier, but just needs that last piece - the situation he was in when he originally signed with the Eagles. If you look at it that way, Atlanta would be a possible destination. They’re tied for first in a competitive division, and they’re fresh out of receiving talent. They could benefit a lot from T.O.'s play.

The organization would have to decide if they think they could rein him in. I don’t think they could - Mora’s still a pretty young coach, and they don’t really have a strong veteran in the locker room who could (try to) keep him focused. Vick’s none to accurate a passer, either, and he’s one of the few QBs that can rival McNabb as far as media focus. Owens would throw a fit there.

[\QUOTE]

Remember also that Mora spent five years as the 49’ers defensive coordinator. He saw Owens up close and I bet, now that he’s pulling the strings, he won’t touch him.

106

I’m not so sure about that. I think it’s possible that whether or not the team wins games is actually less important to Owens that how many catches and touchdowns he gets. I think he’d be quite happy to play for a team where the ball gets thrown to him every play and he makes a whole bunch of receptions each game, even if the team doesn’t actually win very much.

Of course, there is always going to be a connection between his number of receptions and the team’s performance, and he’s unlikely to get many receptions on a team with a crappy offensive line and no pass protection, but in principle i think that T.O. is concerned more about his own glory than whether or not he is on a winning team.

107

That’s why I didn’t put them on a list of places he’d want to go. :wink:
I thought about Atlanta, but like I said I’m not sure Rich McKay would take on that type of headache. Plus he does a lot of back-loaded contracts too, and we see how well TO responds to them. :slight_smile: And if Jerry Rice wasn’t enough of a veteran presence to keep him focused, there probably isn’t one.

As for Oakland & Dallas: Even Al Davis has to realize there’s no way you’re going to keep Moss & Owens happy. Not enough balls to go around. And if I had to pick one, I’d say Moss. That’s why I said they don’t really need him. And I really think Owens absolutely burned his bridges with Jones. I think the fans would revolt. And like you said, Parcells will put up with some trouble, but only from his guys. And compared to Owens, Keyshawn is the consumate team guy. Stranger things have happened, but I just don’t see him going either of those places.

I just don’t know if this time he’s going to get a chance to go where he wants. He may have to play for a bad, or at least mediocre team.

108

Carr is much too busy developing a close, personal relationship with the turf to have the luxury of worrying what his receivers think of him.

109

Yeah, I guess the Raiders and Broncos are as likely as anyone to roll the dice on him. Gonna be interesting to see who takes a chance on him. If he acts like an ass on his new team (and that’s as safe a bet as you can get), they can’t say they didn’t see it coming.

110

Hadn’t thought about that. Excellent point. I haven’t heard of anybody connected to the 'niners staff that doesn’t seem to outright hate him.

111

Er, that was to Gangster Octopus. Darn quick thread.

112

I understand McDonald’s is hiring.

113

Ha, that’s nice of you to say, I suppose. I don’t really expect anyone to feel too bad for Eagles fans or anything, since the fans’ identities get conflated with the team’s, and the Eagles identity as of late is not the most attractive. That’s another thing that TO managed to do. The Eagles are the team that everyone loves to hate all of a sudden. It’s a weird position for a Philadelphia fan to be the guy on top who everybody’s just dying to see fail, especially since we haven’t won anything, damn it.

As far as the Patriots’ receivers, I really, really think you’re selling those guys short. I would trade any of the set Pinkston, Lewis, Mitchell for either Branch or Givens. The Eagles passing game in the years before TO was unbelievably pedestrian on the outside, and that can hardly be said of the Patriots. More than that, though, the Patriots receivers work very well for whatever reason as a unit without a star, while the veteran guys on the Eagles seem to desperately need a number one guy to draw attention away from themselves.

The horse collar thing, well, I would say that they outlawed the tackle because it was a dirty play, not that it’s a dirty play because it’s not allowed, but obviously the fact that he hurt Owens (among others) in that fashion colors my perception. For what it’s worth, I agree that the Eagles make a lot of illegal hits as well.

Wow, this is a quick thread… I thought this post would end up right under BigDummy’s, and now I’m like ten posts behind.

Oh yeah, you can also scratch the Falcons from the prospective suitors list. I seem to recall that during TO’s initial holdout, he was home in Atlanta and said he’d love to play there, and the Falcons’ organization came right out and said, um, no, Terrell, we’d love not to have you.

114

I think you’re reading “patronizing” into it. I just disagree very strongly.

But that’s the way damn near every contract in the league is set up – fat bonus to start, then lower salaries for the first few years. To my knowledge, he never expressed a concern that he get a fat salary every single year – until, of course, Rosenhaus cam in the picture.

Yes, I think that’s what it is. Look, it’s not enough to simply say he’s a known asshole. This is not a guy that had had problems at 3 or 4 places and had alienated half the league. He could, with some credibility, say that it had just gone bad in SF and that he was ready to turn over a new leaf in a new location. There are plenty of guys – Cris Carter, Corey Dillon, Kerry Collins etc. – who have done just that.

Of course, one has to be somewhat cautious-- which is why they scheduled the window after 2 years. But unless you were insisting that they shouldn’t sign him a year ago, to come along now and claim they should have known better is pretty weak IMO.

Moreover, his bitching in SF was not, IIRC, primarily about money; the Eagles had no reason to think he was going to suddenly turn into Mr. Greed.

“At the moment” being key. A lot of things have gone bad this year, some of them having nothing to do with TO. The Pats missed the playoffs in 2002, and are struggling this year with injuries in the secondary. Do you think it was a mistake for them not to pay Ty Law megabucks? I bet Belichick doesn’t. You don’t panic at 4-4. I’m a lot more interested in being a contender for the next 5-10 years than I am in trashing everything to try to WIN NOW. That way lieth Daniel Snyder.

Yes, there was an “out year,” in the sense that he was due another huge bonus before year three. That does not mean the team did, in fact, plan to cut him. As I said, every source I’ve read says it was wisely structured so that they had a hedge against bad behavior; but that had he kept his head down, they intended to pick up the option next offseason.

They did. Lot of teams wouldn’t have even done the 2 year buyout.

Gimme a break. People can pretend anything they like. “Yes, I’m the best paid WR in the game, but I deserve QB money.” “I got my team to the Super Bowl, and Peyton Manning didn’t, so I deserve more than him.”

They were prepared for Primadonna. They were prepared for asshole. They were not prepared for The Biggest Turd in the History of Sports. I think it’s weak to blame them for that.
My own opinion? There are two things here:

#1 is Rosenhaus. Agents, to make money, have to do something for their client. By the time he took over as Owens’ agent, the deal was already in place, and if he’d waited till next offseason, then Owens would be collecting that year 2 bonus and would still be happy with that deal. The only way for him to get a peice of action anytime before 2008 was to renegotiate NOW. He probably figured that the Eagles, since they were due to give the big bonus next offseason anyway would be willing to cough it up after only one season’s good behavior. So he convinced Owens that he’d earned that reward NOW, and that the risk of getting hurt during the season (and then getting cut loose) was too great.

From Rosenhaus’s POV, he’s still ahead of the game: he’ll get his chunk of whatever TO signs for next year. It’ll be less that the $7 million Philly would have paid, but 5% of $3M is more than 0% of $7M.

#2 is that what TO wants more than money is love and respect. He came to realize that McNabb is and would always be bigger than him in Philly. If they won 6 rings, he’d still only be Scottie Pippen, and it chafed him. Add to that that McNabb is a bright, articulate, funny guy whom the media likes, and who comes from a 2 parent suburban family and you start to see where his otherwise inexplicable resentment of his QB comes from.

Sad.

115

Shit, Davis would take him *because * he’s an asshole player at a position they don’t need.

My best guesses, in ascending order of likelihood:

Denver Shanahan may want to prove how smart he is.
**Miami ** Ditto Saban.
Whatever team Billick ends up coaching Ditto again.
**Kansas City ** Vermeil wouldn’t, but he won’t be there.
**Buffalo ** Moulds is getting Oulds, and this team needs a spark.
Seattle The window is closing.

aaand #1 …

The Saints He’ll fit right in with the owner. (Ba-dum)

116

Oh come on, everybody hated you guys long before TO. You cheered spinal injuries & booed Santa Claus for god’s sake. :smiley:
Like I said, y’all got to & hosted the championship game 3 years running with those scrubs. The Pats’ guys work well together & in the system, But I’d have trouble seeing any of them as the #1 guy for most of the league. Y’all needed an upgrade, just maybe not that big of one.

117

I thought about KC. Someone with his talent could help them a lot. Not him necessarily, but someone. :slight_smile:
And maybe the Saints, but not sure how he & Horn would get along.

I was thinking Seattle more along the lines of Holmgren wouldn’t put up with it. I think they had their fill with Koren Robinson.

118

Looks like the Eagles are ready to do more than suspend him. According to ESPN’s Len Pasquarelli (who’s a piss poor excuse for a journalist, but usually has pretty solid sources of information):

This is going to drive him totally out of control.

119

The Arizona Cardinals don’t need him. While the Cards need lots of help, they have good receivers in Boldin and Fitzgerald. A good quarterback is what the Cards need.

120

Horn’s getting old. If he doesn’t like it, its “See ya round, Joe.”

He won’t be there.