The High Court

Deep Thinkers Only...

Free T.O.!

November 9, 2005

 

Cue the romantic music.  Cut to a beaming Terrell Owens as he leaps into the arms of a smiling, towel-clad Andy Reid, as a grinning Donovan McNabb sits nearby…enjoying a bowl of Campbell’s soup.  The Eagles are back, baby.  Print those playoff tickets, book a trip to Ford Field in Detroit.  These Eagles are taking flight for another Super Bowl run.  Or are they…

 

We don’t know yet if Owens’ Tuesday afternoon apology to everyone on the Atlantic seaboard will eventually put him back in an Eagle uniform (although the organization has reportedly already said no to any T.O. return).  And we don’t know if his return would lift a struggling last-place Philly team to the playoffs, anyway.  So most of the 12,483,575 people in the sports world who have suggested Philadelphia was right to end Owens’ season for conduct detrimental to the team are going to tell you that it should still be good riddance to bad rubbish.  But not me.  I say welcome this guy back with open arms.  Because I don’t think the Eagles should have suspended him in the first place…

 

That’s right.  I said it.  T.O. (or ‘to’ as Jim Rome likes to call him…and that is priceless) should never have been suspended by the Philadelphia Eagles.  Not for a minute.  Instead, he should be lifted up as the poster boy for the franchise.  He should be recognized as the best player on the team and treated with the love and respect that comes with the title.  Think I’m nuts?  Not me.  But the Eagles are.  And that is why they shouldn’t be allowed to cut ties with Terrell Owens.  They wanted him.  They got him.  And all the baggage that goes with it.  Philly made their bed.  Now Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb should have to lie in it…with T.O. right in the middle.

 

I have been utterly amused and delighted to watch this ridiculous soap opera play out as it has.  Couldn’t we see this coming?  From miles away?  I mean, really…This is the same guy who screamed at his coaches in San Francisco, and who set out to destroy 49er quarterback Jeff Garcia with such vigor that he suggested that Garcia was everything from weak-armed to homosexual.  T.O. threw a fit when his old agent flubbed his free agency, threw another fit when he was traded to Baltimore, and then threw one more tantrum until he landed in Philadelphia. 

 

And sure, things went fairly well last season, as Owens was prolific all season long, including during his remarkable return from a serious leg injury to star in the Super Bowl.  But even then, seeds of discontent were being sown.  And mostly by Owens himself.  He was offended when none of his teammates (especially McNabb) acted as though the world had ended when Owens was injured.  Then upon latching onto superagent/human shark Drew Rosenhaus, Owens decided he had outperformed his previous contract.  And when his contract demands were not met, T.O. gave every indication that 2005 would not be a happy season in the City of Brotherly Love.

 

But this thing is on the Eagles.  And I am not absolving Owens of blame.  Let’s go ahead and stipulate that he is Problem 1 through, oh say, 100.  With that said, however, we have plenty of parties to blame here.  First, let’s start at the top, with owner Jeffrey Lurie and team president Joe Banner.  Hey guys, you make a deal with the devil…you get consequences.  Looking for that one missing piece to finally get them over the top and into the Super Bowl, the Eagles were thrilled to obtain perhaps the best wide receiver in football to shore up a position that had been killing them.  Ah, but they weren’t just getting the best receiver in football; they were also getting the most combustible receiver in football.  And they all knew it.  Owens’ antics in San Francisco were extremely well-chronicled.  They knew that they were getting a guy who would bash his teammates and could be a coach-killer.  But Philly felt they had the perfect guy to handle that…

 

Andy Reid.  And let’s go ahead and put Andy on the list as another party to blame in this whole scenario.  It was crystal clear coming into training camp that Owens’ would be a disruptive force until he got the new contract he wanted (and perhaps even beyond then).  Reid even had to go as far as sending Owens home briefly during camp.  The same half-hearted apologies and declarations of good behavior were made, and T.O. was back to start the season.  Sports Illustrated’s Peter King suggested the other day that Reid continued to put up with Owens’ behavior because he hoped to help him as a person.  It took me a while to stop laughing after I read that one.  And it isn’t because I don’t believe that Reid cares about Owens…it’s because I know that Reid knows the Eagles are title contenders with T.O., and probably playoff pretenders without him.  Andy Reid has been facing a terrible dilemma in that what is good for his team on the field…Owens being present…is the worst thing for his team off the field.  He shouldn’t have let Owens begin the season with the club.  He was too well aware of the ticking time bomb he was dealing with.  But he gambled, and it blew up in his face.  Reid made the mistake of enabling Owens when he allowed him to come back the first time, making himself something akin to a Steve Mariucci.  Ever wonder why Keyshawn Johnson never gives Bill Parcells any real trouble?  Because Key knows that his ass would hit the street as soon as the sound of his voice hit the Tuna’s ears.  Reid failed to send that message to Owens until it was too late.  Now he and the franchise will pay the price.

 

And then there’s the guy that bothers me most…Donovan McNabb.  Yeah, I know that McNabb is everybody’s favorite…a classy professional.  You say classy professional, I say corporate yes-man.  McNabb (who welcomed T.O. with open arms last year…at least publicly) has been too worried about his own public image to handle the Owens situation properly.  Which would have been to do what ex-Eagle Hugh Douglas did…call T.O. out and punch him in the mouth.   For months McNabb sat back and allowed Owens to run him down, always choosing to take the high road and take a diplomatic tack.  Well, sometimes it’s time to take the bull-dookie by the horns (sorry if that was offensive…I was supposed to guest host for Howard Stern, but I got bumped for the sex-capade Carolina Panthers cheerleaders. So offensive is all I have).  That is McNabb’s team and his locker room, despite the fact that Owens is the better player.  McNabb as the quarterback is the foundation of that franchise, and his tenure there gives him the latitude to speak out on any important issue.  But instead he played the patsy to Owens’ constant and petty criticisms.  How did that stance work with T.O.?  He took it as a green light to keep running his mouth.  Nice leadership, Donovan.

 

Let me illustrate McNabb’s failings against the backdrop of another famous corporate pitchman, Michael Jordan.  During Jordan’s second three-peat in Chicago, one of his running mates was the notorious Worm, Dennis Rodman.  Now Rodman is another troubled soul, the victim of a difficult childhood, a man with little-to-zero emotional maturity, and a man who could have his feelings hurt at the drop of a hat.  Just like Terrell Owens.  Rodman had just finished a tumultuous stint in San Antonio as sidekick to another squeaky-clean, sweet superstar, David Robinson.  Who just happened to be like McNabb.  So Rodman’s tenure as a Spur didn’t work out so well, because the Admiral was too nice to ever straighten Rodman out.  And people feared what would transpire in Chicago.  Now as you know, Rodman’s behavior would grow more bizarre by the day, but thanks to the firm (and perhaps intimidating) hand of Jordan, Rodman would help the Bulls to the NBA’s best single-season record and those three championships.  Jordan, as you also know, has carefully crafted himself to be America’s pitchman.  He can talk for hours and never say anything of substance.  But if somebody ever stepped in the way of his goals as a professional basketball player, they would pay the price.  Rodman knew that.  And as much as he respected Jordan the player, he respected MJ the man just as much.

 

T.O. never respected Donovan McNabb.  Never.  He has always looked at McNabb as being in lockstep with Reid and the Eagles organization.  This made him the perfect target when it came time to demand more money.  Owens kept goading McNabb, hoping I’m sure, to get McNabb to come out and support his contract demands.  When Donovan never did, Owens marked it down as one more slight by a teammate (and Owens seems to keep track of those like Jordan did the slights of opponents…which seemed a bit more constructive).  Jordan, on the other hand, while close to Phil Jackson and owner Jerry Reinsdorf, made public sport of ridiculing Bulls GM Jerry Krause, showing his teammates he wasn’t management’s guy.  McNabb has never made any such move, and has gone out of his way not to do anything that might sully his corporate reputation.

 

Frankly, it seems like a high price to pay just to sell some soup.  But different strokes for different folks.  It may just not be McNabb’s style.  I can tell you this, though…Brett Favre, the quarterback Owens expressed a preference for in the ESPN.com interview that got him suspended, would never have put up with the garbage that McNabb has.  That is a guarantee.

 

And since I mentioned the call letters…let me not forget ESPN in all this.  Look, as I mentioned earlier, Owens really needs no help digging his own holes.  Nobody works the idiot shovel faster.  But the ESPN family should really be ashamed of themselves.  They have gone so far from being a network dedicated to broadcasting and reporting on sports, to now being a media empire obsessed with actually making and being the news, I half expect to see Geraldo Rivera and Pat O’Brien anchoring the 11 p.m. SportsCenter.  What did they think they were going to get with this latest interview?  Seriously?  It was just one more piece of bait, one more forum for T.O. to make an ass out of himself.  Matter of fact, it was Owens’ own buddy, broadcasting’s clown prince, Michael Irvin, who first suggested that the Eagles would be undefeated with Brett Favre under center.  The question was asked, Owens answered as expected (indicting McNabb, again), and just like that…BAM…ESPN has a huge story, and Terrell Owens has a season-ending suspension.

 

I can’t help wondering, when all is said and done, what it is about this Owens character that holds the media’s complete attention.  I could not care less about this story.  Really.  It was just a few months ago during training camp that I banned the mere mention of Owens’ name on this site.  But the national sports media (hello, ESPN) has locked on to this thing for months.  The Chicago White Sox win the franchise’s first World Series in 88 years and the story stays in the news cycle for about 24 hours.  This has been going on for what seems like 24 years.  And it isn’t just a sports story, either.  For reasons that escape me, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams chose to close his Tuesday evening broadcast by lauding the Eagles for their decision to suspend T.O.  He discussed it as though it was some sort of landmark act, when I am fairly certain that Tampa Bay lived this same situation with the aforementioned Keyshawn Johnson two seasons ago.  Yawn.  What bothered me even more about Williams’ ignorant commentary was the fact that he dragged Bobby Knight into his analogy about when enough is enough.  Knight, regardless of your opinion of him (and I like the guy…and if you have a problem with that, let me get you a chair…), does not deserve to be castigated on the nightly news just to serve the egotistical whim of a network anchor.  Coach Knight has nothing to do with the Philadelphia Eagles’ handling of Terrell Owens.  Williams’ comments were grossly unprofessional and are an example of journalism at its very lowest point.  But then that is another column all by itself…

 

Sports opinion makers can praise the Philadelphia Eagles all they want.  But the Eagles haven’t done anything we haven’t seen other franchises do.  All they are really doing, in effect, is cleaning up their own mess.  They got everything I knew they would from Terrell Owens...Great play and terrible behavior.  And for the longest time, the organization allowed themselves and their franchise quarterback to be slaughtered by Owens’ public comments.  That they finally decided they had endured enough is nothing to be celebrated.  It was simply inevitable.  They stopped believing the man who cried sorry.  The ultimate proof of that will be seen if they do indeed refuse T.O.’s latest apology and leave him at home for the season.  But it wouldn’t be the first time if they decide to take him back.  And that is exactly how they got here in the first place.  They wanted him.  They got him.  They should have to live with him.  That would be justice.

 

Free T.O.!

 

 

 

Contact The Chief Justice at chiefjustice@thehighcourtofsports.com.