T.O.o much to handle?
Paul Mikowski/Sports Assistant Editor
If you could earn $2 million in a single year, would you do it? Don’t think too hard about it, because of course you would! However, you should be aware that as a result of this dizzying $2 million paycheck, a great deal will be asked of you in return.
You will be asked to devote about 85% of your waking hours to the sport of football. You will have to show up to every single practice in the finest physical and mental shape you’ve ever been. You will be asked to work extremely hard all year, and will need to make the sport one of the dominant priorities of your life. You will not only have to be a top notch team player, but you will be expected to fill the role as a leader and a mentor to an entire team, organization, and fan base. You won’t necessarily be asked to be friends with everybody, but you will have to be able to spend anywhere from three to eighteen hours a day with them. Oh, and did I mention that everything between your head, shoulders, knees, toes and spinal cord are at risk of being permanently damaged in a gruesome variety of ways? You at least deserve a fair warning.
Assuming that you don’t have a family, get ready to seriously cut down on your partying, because you will not have any more time for it. If you do have a family, I have but one word for you: Yikes. Not to mention you will be asked to be a role model for an entire city or, better yet, an entire state, so be on your best behavior.
Most importantly, you will be asked to win a World Championship for this team. A Super Bowl, arguably the most coveted prize in American sport today. You’ve had your troubles in the past, but now you have promised to be a different person and fulfill every one of the above expectations because, deep down, you know you may not see many more opportunities to earn $2 million in one year.
So, would you still take the money?
If so, then touché and power to you, but what if you are Terrell Owens?
The 36 year-old Owens begins his 15th NFL season as the newest major addition to the Cincinnati Bengals, and is slated to be the team’s other starting wide out beside the Bengal’s “golden boy”, Chad Ochocinco. Somebody please tell me where I can find a receiver tandem in all of Pro Football that provides less bang for their buck? Despite their undeniable talent and their moderate collection of great performances in certain important games, both of these two upstanding gentlemen have a very poor reception-per-complaint ratio.
Both are good football players in their own right, but alas I am not writing this to discuss their pasts, and Ochocinco aside, I am actually concerned solely with Owens in this article.
Now I know I sound a little sarcastically venomous, but it is only because I, much like most diehard fans of the NFL, believe that professional football players (and all professional athletes for that matter) should be held to the highest standard of performance, maturity, and behavior.
Since Owens was drafted with the 89th pick in the 1996 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers, Number 81 has always been a talented albeit loud, brash, confident, flamboyant and reproachable player, and has been known to put his own ego and agenda over that of the rest of whichever team by which he happened to be employed.
After eight successful seasons with the 49ers, Owens enjoyed two tumultuous seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles; seasons filled with arguments with former Quarterback Donovan McNabb.
Shortly thereafter, he was picked up by the Dallas Cowboys, where he played for another semi-productive but controversial and tear-filled 3 seasons. Now, at the beginning of the 2010-2011season as a Cincinnati Bengal, after a one-year stint with the Bills in 2009, he is receiving a fourth chance to redeem himself as a dependable player and person.
Whew. Now my problem with Owens is not only that he does to team unity what the entire cast of “The Jersey Shore” does to our pride as Americans (he destroys it for anyone wondering), but also he is getting old. Not Brett Favre old, and certainly not Morton Andersen old, but T.O. is 36 and not getting any younger, or better. For each position in football, there is an average age at which most players retire; Owens has reached that age. Now I would not argue that this man is a rare physical specimen of an athlete, but he cannot possibly have much fuel left in his tank, especially if he uses so much of it to fume and complain about various “injustices”.
In addition, I will not argue that he has proven himself as arguably one of the greatest receivers of all time on the field and on paper. He has averaged just short of 15 yards per catch throughout his career, and his 144 receiving touchdowns rank him at second all time for career TD receptions, shy only to the emperor of receiverdom himself, the great Jerry Rice.
But are the few TD catches he has left in him worth the baggage that T.O. tows with him wherever he struts? I’m not saying that Owens is too old to play, but I am saying that he is too old to make a difference. Believe it or not, I do not even dislike the man, but I feel strongly that a progressive and hopeful team like the Bengals should be looking for younger, yet more finely matured talent. And for a very young offense led by 8 year veteran Carson Palmer under center, a better option can be found to fill that roster spot.
[The rest of this article is the continuation from this week's edition of the Captain's Log]
I will acknowledge that the Bengals have been thirsting for receivers since unfortunate death of Chris Henry two seasons ago and the 2009 departure of pro-bowler T.J. Houshmandzadeh to the Seattle Seahawks. But of all the available options, T.O. was not the ideal one. I wish I could go into detail on the chaos that he stirred with McNabb in Philadelphia, and despite his experience, Owens was a poor mentor to the many young receiving talents he played with in Dallas. And seeing as that I am not Al Davis or Jerry Jones, I consider a player’s character to be on par in importance with a player’s athletic ability and football talent. This character is not something that I believe Terrell Owens possesses or can possess with his few remaining years in the NFL.
But who knows what will happen? Honestly, I would be pleased if Terrell Owens could prove me wrong and produce a solid, trouble-free season for the Bengals. For that matter, I hope the same for his former teammate in Dallas and current teammate in Cincinnati, Adam “Pac-Man” Jones. But again I do not see Owens seeing more than 50 receptions, even less than he had last season in Buffalo.
So here we are with less than a week to go until opening kickoff (a day that I’m looking forward to almost more than my birthday), and there are old receivers all over the NFL, Pittsburgh’s Hines Ward (34) and Washington’s Joey Galloway (38) to name just two, but I believe that Terrell Owens has more to prove than either of them. He must form a legacy that is not one of headaches and complaints, but one of reliability and greatness. He has failed to do any of the things that I told you to do in the first several paragraphs of this article, yet he still expects huge paychecks and plenty of catches to boost his own glory and ego.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, he has $2 million and a one-year to do those things and prove me wrong.
Get your popcorn ready.
Posted by Paul Mikowski
on Sep 8 2010. Filed under Paul's Perspective, Sports.
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