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Report User One thing that bothers me about the current crop of sports journalists is that very few of them make the effort to come at a story with a new angle. Take for instance the recent controversy surrounding Terrell Owens. Whether the reporter is a sports talk guy on the radio, a television analyst, or an editorialist for a newspaper/website/magazine, they all based their words on a single fact. That fact was that Terrell Owens is a jerk.
I am not going to dispute that. It would be crazy and if I even suggested Owens was not a jerk, I likely would lose all credibility with any person reading this. That being said, T.O. is not the only jerk in this situation, and quite possibly fails to be even the biggest jerk in this situation.
While it probably isn't necessary, considering the plethora of recounting done in so many mediums by so many people, let us look at the crimes committed by Terrell Eldorado Owens:
1. He complained about his contract.
2. He complained about management.
3. He complained about his quarterback.
4. He sulked around his teammates.
Crimes thrown out by ex-post facto laws (but still tainting the jury pool):
1. He once put a Sharpie in his sock prior to scoring a touchdown.
2. He once spiked a ball on the Dallas star...then tried to do it again.
Are any of these crimes original? Barry Sanders is one of my favorite players in NFL history, and widely regarded as one of the most humble people to ever strap up the pads. He held out for more money multiple times in his short career. Other players in the most recent preseason also threatened to sit out training camp while demanding a new contract, but the flack they took from the media and the public came no where close to resembling what Owens had to encounter. Countless players have complained about management, and wide receivers have been complaining about their quarterbacks for as long as routes have been going over the middle. Finally, clubhouse cancers plague every sport, but normally surliness is tolerated when the player produces (right, Barry Bonds?).
So, my question is, why is Terrell Owens considered so bad that the masses cheered when he was given the maximum suspension allowed to be levied by a team and deactivated for the remainder of the season? You would have thought he arranged a get away car for a murderer (Ray Lewis), facilitated a drug deal which forced him to spend the offseason in prison (Jamal Lewis), or been busted by police in hotel room with prostitutes snorting cocaine (Michael Irvin). Of course, none of those guys were suspended by their team. In fact, from a citizenship standpoint, Owens is among the NFL's best. He never ends up on a police blotter, because the guy is too busy sculpting his adonis-like physique to get in trouble. While other players are spending their off season clubbing, T.O. is playing minor league basketball in order to keep up his endurance.
The real reason that Owens was punished while players who have done much worse have suited up until the league disqualified them is that Owens bit the hand that fed him. It happened to Keyshawn Johnson and Carl Pickens, as well. When they criticized the organization, they found themselves in exile. In those cases, there was some backlash from the public. Pickens was considered a frustrated victim of a good player on a bad team, and was relatively unknown because he played for such a bad team. Johnson was better known, but the team he played for was combusting internally, so the reaction was mainly shock at the situation and considered less a reflection on how obnoxious he had become. The Eagles, however, were considered a model franchise, but to me, that was just a facade.
In my eyes, the Eagles have been going down this path since before they acquired the volitile receiver. For years, they have been fiscally conservative in a way that valued players were constantly leaving the team for better paychecks elsewhere. Then, illogically, they hopped into the middle of the San Francisco 49er/Baltimore Ravens/Terrell Owens fiasco. You see, that is what a lot of these media types conveniently forget. While the Eagles have feigned shock and hurt at Owens' antics, they were quite aware of the potential. It was an Owens tantrum about his belief that he should be a free agent that allowed him to donn the Eagles green to begin with. After his agent failed to file the proper paperwork, a problem remained that T.O. had burned his bridge in San Fran. The team and the town were fed up with him, but they retained his contract. They quickly sent him to the highest bidder in Baltimore. This displeased Owens who believed he should be able to choose where he would be going. He threatened to sit out the season if the team ratified the deal. In something much more consistent with tampering than the charge they recently levied on Jerry Jones, the Eagles publicly offered to give T.O. a big contract if he would okay a trade to Philadelphia (which was surprising considering the team's usual hesitance to give the big payday). In order to take the path of least resistance, all the teams complied.
After taking advantage of Owens' tendency to be a prima donna, the Eagles gave him a raise and watched as his abilities catapulted them into the NFC playoffs. However, his acquisition was strictly to get the city of brotherly love a league title. So, when Owens' ankle was horribly mangled late in the regular season, things looked bad. Owens was the feel good story of the Superbowl when he came through on his vow to rehab dilligently and play in the game. When team doctors were still hesitant to clear him for play, Eagles management promised that they would "take care of him" after the season. For a rational person, that would have been construed as a promise not to cut him (which the Eagles were legally allowed to do) if he were injured in the game...but that's assuming you are talking to a rational person. Every sports jornalist in the country will tell you that T.O. is not a rational person. While I certainly know him less than anyone in the Eagles organization, even I could have told you that Owens construed that as a promise for a bigger, better contract. The fact that the Eagles are now pretending to be victims here is akin to a homeowner pouring gasoline on a defective wire and then blaming the fire on the construction crew. Sure, the person responsible for the defective wiring deserves scorn, but would the homeowner be absolved entirely? In this circumstance, the Eagles organization has been virtually untouched on the subject.
Finally, there is the issue of whether the Eagles owed him a new contract. This is typically where the age old, managment favored, sports argument comes in: Sure, he outperformed expectations, but if he had underperformed, would he have accepted a pay cut? In most leagues, that is a valid discussion. When talking about the National Football League, though, it is entirely irrelevant. Mainly, because NFL contracts are entirely one-sided. The contract holders have absolute control, while the players have only the option of playing for the amount on the contract or not getting paid at all. The perfect illustration of how the players are mistreated by this system is Peter Warrick. While Owens was lobbying for a new contract, P-Dub was the proud holder of a valid NFL contract that he was pleased with. The problem is that he had not performed up to the expectations the Cincinnati Bengals had when they signed the document. They gave him an option: Renegotiate the contract for a lower salary, or be waived outright. It is a mirror image. One player does better and wants more money, one player does worse and is offered a reduced salary. The former has scorn heaped on him, mostly by the "he makes too much to play football, anyway" crowd, and the latter guy is told to play better, except for the "they make too much for paying people to play football" crowd.
In other sports, the unions have been criticized for having too much power. In most of those cases, the critics have a point. Compared to Football, baseball and basketball players have only minimal risk of being injured. Yet, in those two sports, the unions secured guaranteed contracts while in football, players who become injured could go without pay because the union is too weak. That would have been a good angle for some mainstream reporter to take, using Owens personal strike against the system as a the launching point. Perhaps, Peter Warrick's case could have been expounded upon. Maybe even one writer could have taken the Eagles to task for playing with fire and then complaining when they were burnt. Instead, the sports media hopped on the "Hate T.O." bandwagon whether it was because he disrespected their hometeam with a touchdown celebration or just because the journalist's audience just liked to hear the word jerk in conjunction with Terrell Owens. Whatever the reason, the sports fan community was let down by not hearing the whole story.