T.O. ...Demon or Angel?!

[Phoenix-Talon]

Pardon the interruption, but quite frankly, you may not need T.O.!

I may be seeing this whole thing through mud-colored glasses. But I really don't think so. I know what I've been reading through the off-season and into this regular season. Many of the fans here have done everything but excommunicate T.O. via various threads and posts that condemn him as a cancer.

Yet there are threads here (and I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that he may be coming to Dallas) that are pro-T.O., giving leniency and in some cases, and despite his antics, a love-fest!

It just strikes me kind of ....hypocritical! Besides, I don't profess to know Bill Parcels (even though I've kind of followed him pre-Dallas), I see some dynamics that might jeopardize T.O.s tranisiton into a Dallas Cowboys uniform ...questionable.

Parcels won't tolerate even the first sign of showboating ...perhaps T.O. has retired his waiters towel, his sharpie pen, and desecrating the Dallas Star celebrations -- heck, he may have a real crap on the Eagles end-zone logo, once he scores a TD in Philly!

Parcels probably does not want to take the chance that T.O. could have a detrimental impact on the Dallas locker-room. Although Roy Williams may be able to control him.

Speaking of Roy Williams, I wonder if T.O. has forgotten and forgave Roy for almost ruining T.O.s livelihood/football career. Sure, they probably will end Up be good friends ...something like how T.O. and McNabb's relationship started out .

Jerry Jones may have to insist that the Cowboys Coaching staff welcome T.O. with open wallets.

Can T.O. emerge from Hell into Heaven as an Angelic WR and change his image for Parcels and the Dallas fans. Or, are you merely inheriting 49er/Eagle baggage?

As far as his skills are concerned ...T.O has no problem breaking an opponents back with his breakaway catch and runs. He's definitely an enigma; but I still think the Eagles are better without him.

Good luck Dallas -- you'll need it!

 

[TheHustler]

Don't want him here either.

 

[WV Cowboy]

How bad would Eagle fans hate it if TO did come to Dallas and things worked out for him and the Cowboys ?

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Satan was an Angel once too.

 

[aikemirv]

I don't think that any of the people who would like him to come to Dallas are hypocritical.

I just think they have no principles and don't care what a player does as long as he gets the team wins.

Like I said before, that is why we have the problems with athletes today. They get away with stuff just because they are talented and that is just wrong.

 

[Yeagermeister]

short answer.........no

 

[Phoenix-Talon]

Satan was an Angel once too.

Until he started to think he was bigger than the Head Coach!

 

[Irving Cowboy]

Many of the fans here have done everything but excommunicate T.O. via various threads and posts that condemn him as a cancer.

Not according to Ron Jaworski, he insists that the majority of the fans there are on T.O.s side... I would tend to agree with you though, as my sister-in-law tells me that people there in Philly are about tired of hearing about him, only because they know that that's what he WANTS... for him to be the talk of the town whether it's bad or not.

Anyway, as to whether T.O. is a demon or angel, I would say he's a sphincter.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Until he started to think he was bigger than the Head Coach!

Preaching to the Choir Talon.

 

[Doomsday101]

I don't think that any of the people who would like him to come to Dallas are hypocritical.

I just think they have no principles and don't care what a player does as long as he gets the team wins.

Like I said before, that is why we have the problems with athletes today. They get away with stuff just because they are talented and that is just wrong.

I agree. If by some chance T.O. were to come to Dallas I would still support this organization even though I may disagree with the move. I can hear myself now, "Great Catch **** head" God I hope this does not happen. LOL

 

[aikemirv]

Actually , what is hypocritical is an Eagle fan, who did not have a problem signing TO, coming over to a Cowboy board and calling out people who would like to see him in Dallas.

Are you 1 of them??

 

[Billy Bullocks]

Some fans on this board are dillusional, just like, gulp, Skins fans. Over there you hear the whole "Gibbs could controll TO". What makes anyone think he wont pull the same **** here. SF was a bad situation, but he was still getting his numbers. He gets traded, the 1st thing he does is complain about being traded to Baltimore. So at this point he's crapped on Balitmore, and SF already.

He cries his way to Philly. Philly, this is the best team in the NFC at the time. If there were a team out there that TO would push into the top spot in the NFL, this would be it. Good RB, Pro Bowl QB, very good defense. A HC who had worked his way into the upper quadrant of NFL Coaches. An organization that was a model franchise, from front office to the players on the roster.(Hate the Iggles, just gotta give credit where it's due). Things start to sour a bit for TO, and he makes scene.

I for one think this Dallas team can be better without him. Without the baggage. Parcells has built a team with a very solid young core, along with a nice veteran cast. This team has chemistry, and you can see it. There is no question that TO is a top 3 WR, that he is going to make the team more explosive on the field, and really that's all taht counts..but it seems his baggage outways his production.

TO is a great teammate? You know what, he might just be. But IMO a good teammate doesn't air team business on national Television. A good teammate, if he has a problem with a player, a coach, a towel boy, he goes to that person. He keeps it internal. He doesn't cause a media hooplah about it, he doesn't take off his shirt and do sit ups in his drive way.

People, this is not Madden, this isn't your Fantasy Football league. Besides the fact that we aren't landing TO for cheap, this wont benefit us. This isn't Charles Haley. Charles Haley was a troubled soul, but it wasn't near TO. TO has publicly called out his QB(2 of em), his O-Coordinator(2 of em), and his former HC(in SF). TO will command top dollar, hey, the gamble maybe would pay off, but usually high risk makes the entire thing a gamble in the 1st place.

Maybe in this game of Russian roulette we spin and get lucky. But TO is 2/2 at pissing off his employers.

 

[BHendri5]

not a demon, nor is he an angel. He is just a misguided individual, that was played by his agents and the eagles organization.

I in fact side with him. I would welcomehim here with us, if that came about, because he is a great player.

People seem to forget, that Jerry can do whatever he wants to do, he gave BP control, but he did not give BP total control. Jery is still the owner and GM, and that means he can do what he wants when he wants.

He said in the press conference when BP was hired that he will give BP control but he was not handing over all of the control.

BP has stated on numerous occasions that he has to get Jerry to sign off off moves, or discuss moves with Jerry, because he is the one who signs his checks.

 

[Billy Bullocks]

Actually , what is hypocritical is an Eagle fan, who did not have a problem signing TO, coming over to a Cowboy board and calling out people who would like to see him in Dallas.

Are you 1 of them??

To defend the Eagles fan here, TO was not happy with the direction SF was going. Garcia was a bad QB. He wanted out of SF and it was clear. It seemed that if he played for a winner, it would be OK. Alot of players aren't bad players, or bad people even, they just want out of a situation. Corey Dillon had no desire of playing anymore in Cinci. New England gambled and won.

Philly made a gamble that all the other teams would have made. The situation is a bit differnet now, and if you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[Doomsday101]

Some fans on this board are dillusional, just like, gulp, Skins fans. Over there you hear the whole "Gibbs could controll TO". What makes anyone think he wont pull the same **** here. SF was a bad situation, but he was still getting his numbers. He gets traded, the 1st thing he does is complain about being traded to Baltimore. So at this point he's crapped on Balitmore, and SF already.

He cries his way to Philly. Philly, this is the best team in the NFC at the time. If there were a team out there that TO would push into the top spot in the NFL, this would be it. Good RB, Pro Bowl QB, very good defense. A HC who had worked his way into the upper quadrant of NFL Coaches. An organization that was a model franchise, from front office to the players on the roster.(Hate the Iggles, just gotta give credit where it's due). Things start to sour a bit for TO, and he makes scene.

I for one think this Dallas team can be better without him. Without the baggage. Parcells has built a team with a very solid young core, along with a nice veteran cast. This team has chemistry, and you can see it. There is no question that TO is a top 3 WR, that he is going to make the team more explosive on the field, and really that's all taht counts..but it seems his baggage outways his production.

TO is a great teammate? You know what, he might just be. But IMO a good teammate doesn't air team business on national Television. A good teammate, if he has a problem with a player, a coach, a towel boy, he goes to that person. He keeps it internal. He doesn't cause a media hooplah about it, he doesn't take off his shirt and do sit ups in his drive way.

People, this is not Madden, this isn't your Fantasy Football league. Besides the fact that we aren't landing TO for cheap, this wont benefit us. This isn't Charles Haley. Charles Haley was a troubled soul, but it wasn't near TO. TO has publicly called out his QB(2 of em), his O-Coordinator(2 of em), and his former HC(in SF). TO will command top dollar, hey, the gamble maybe would pay off, but usually high risk makes the entire thing a gamble in the 1st place.

Maybe in this game of Russian roulette we spin and get lucky. But TO is 2/2 at pissing off his employers.

As long as your winning T.O. is a good teammate but when times get tough forget it the man creates problems and makes it that much tougher on the team.

 

[Alexander]

This isn't Charles Haley. Charles Haley was a troubled soul, but it wasn't near TO. TO has publicly called out his QB(2 of em), his O-Coordinator(2 of em), and his former HC(in SF).

Haley had a number of disputes with SF coaches, so there is not this wide disparity that you are attempting to apply.

Take this article for example:

Owens still has friends with 49ers

[size=-1]By Ann Killion[/size]

[size=-1]Mercury News Staff Columnist[/size]

When you're the NFL's biggest pariah, can you still have friends? When you're Public Enemy No. 1, does anyone still love you?

Apparently, yes.

Terrell Owens still has friends. Right here in San Francisco, with the team he supposedly torched.

``He's a good man,'' 49ers linebacker Julian Peterson said. ``He came from a different upbringing than most people, but if you sit down with him one-on-one, he's a great man, well-mannered, God-fearing.''

Tony Parrish has been to Atlanta to train with Owens.

``He opened up his home to me,'' said Parrish, a safety. ``He's never done wrong by me.''

Those views run smack up against the current image of T.O. Owens has morphed from merely outrageous to downright evil. From controversial lightning rod to poster child for NFL disaster.

He's still a phenomenal player. Even 49ers Coach Mike Nolan conceded Wednesday that the thought of trying to get Owens had crossed his mind, until vice president of player personnel Scot McCloughan brought him back to Earth, saying ``He's a team-wrecker.''

But some of Owens' former teammates -- strong men, leaders in their own right -- don't agree. They view T.O. as simply a different guy who made their team much, much better.

``It takes all kinds to make a championship team,'' said former 49ers tackle Derrick Deese, who is rehabilitating from an injury in Southern California. He had run-ins with Owens in the 49ers' locker room, but he considers him a friend.

``I know T.O. to be a nice guy,'' Deese said. ``A team player. A guy who wants to win real bad. I don't think he destroyed our locker room. I think he gets a bad rap.''

Does he? Deese was there when Owens first came into the league, a shy young man who called reporters ``ma'am'' and ``sir.'' He was absorbed into a locker room full of veteran leaders, into a culture that didn't allow for disruption or egomaniacs.

``Sometimes it takes a team to corral a guy,'' Deese said.

Eventually we learned that Owens' background was one of unbelievable sadness and deprivation. He lived with a strict, unloving grandmother who was an alcoholic and took him to visit bootleggers. His mother lived across town with his other siblings.

He was taunted for his awkwardness and dark skin. When he was a young teenager and developed a crush on a girl across the street, he was told abruptly by the girl's father to leave her alone. Why? Because she was his half-sister. The man he had lived across from all his life was the father he didn't know he had. He had few role models or order.

``When he feels like someone is testing him he's going to push back,'' Peterson said. ``Growing up, there was no one there to parent him.''

With the 49ers, Owens initially had leaders and structure. But then he signed his first big contract and soon the 49ers veterans began to depart. The front office fell apart. There was backbiting and infighting at all levels. And there was only one true star, one playmaker: T.O.

And he didn't know how to handle it.

``If T.O. was in the locker room with Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and Ronnie Lott and Roger Craig,'' said Harry Edwards, the team consultant, ``. . . would he be a different guy? Absolutely. But he wasn't in a locker room so structured. He was with an organization in transition.''

I sat with him in an interview room in 2001, talking about his relationship with his mother and grandmother for a Mother's Day story. Within minutes Owens was sobbing openly, pulling up his T-shirt over his face to catch his tears. The next minute he was angrily deriding Steve Mariucci for disciplining him over the Dallas star incident.

After an hour, I was exhausted. I left thinking he was a complicated young man in need of some therapy.

Those inside the 49ers' organization at the time say that -- to their knowledge -- he never got any. Or any medication. That's in contrast to volatile Charles Haley, who got help during his time with the 49ers. Edwards -- a players' sounding board for years -- has spoken with Owens only once since he left the team.

``This has been a perfect storm,'' Edwards said, ``of media saturation, money, self-promotion and megalomania -- that has flat-out destroyed what could easily be a Hall of Fame career.''

Deese thinks the incidents that led to Owens' suspension by the Philadelphia Eagles were setups: an ESPN.com question about a comment made by ESPN's Michael Irvin, and a taunt by Hugh Douglas in front of the team. He thinks the controversy over Owens wearing an Irvin throwback jersey after a loss to the Cowboys is a non-issue -- at almost every game, some player is wearing one. He thinks his former teammate is being punished because he has become T.O. the Controversial.

``If he had said he wanted Donovan McNabb rather than Brett Favre, him being T.O. people would say he took a swipe at Brett Favre,'' Deese said.

In Deese's mind it all comes back to the Super Bowl. Owens wanted to leave the 49ers to play on a winner. He wanted to play in the Super Bowl so much that he was risking his health. The Eagles made him sign a waiver because of his injured right ankle, but if the situation had been reversed -- and the Eagles wanted him to play and Owens was reluctant -- the team wouldn't have signed a similar waiver.

Deese believes that, in Owens' mind, physical sacrifice and the unusual waiver request changed the contract dynamics.

It became an issue of sacrifice and reward, an issue the men who risk their health and future every Sunday can understand. And, yes, some of those men still call T.O. a friend.

 

[WV Cowboy]

I'm curious, someone start a thread that is a poll:

Want TO
Do not want TO

 

[aikemirv]

To defend the Eagles fan here, TO was not happy with the direction SF was going. Garcia was a bad QB. He wanted out of SF and it was clear. It seemed that if he played for a winner, it would be OK. Alot of players aren't bad players, or bad people even, they just want out of a situation. Corey Dillon had no desire of playing anymore in Cinci. New England gambled and won.

Philly made a gamble that all the other teams would have made. The situation is a bit differnet now, and if you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you.

He did not have a lot of suitors - you are wrong there. Is he worse appearing know than he was then - by all means - but not many teams were after him - they knew what he was!

 

[TobiasEagle77]

Rewind to a year and a half ago.

Now hear me out. Don't believe the image that the media paints of TO. Garcia was as much to blame as Owens in the media circus. Terrell Owens just wants to play for a winner! He's not about the money, he just wants to play for an organization that knows how to win, and how to deal with the media. San Fran is a joke. He needs a strong head coach, like Reid, and leaders in the locker room: like Dawkins, McNabb, Chad Lewis, etc. The Eagles have that leadership, they are a winning organization, and they are used to dealing with an overzealous media. Owens just needs a fresh start.

Now fast forward back to today. I've learned my lesson. I know who spoke the truth those days. I find myself repeating words I heard from 49er fans spring of 04. Deja vu hit me like a knife in the back, with an evil twist.

Could TO be the ultimate mercenary? A rent-a-player with a one year lease? Perhaps. That's kind of how your quarterback situation has been since Aikman, more or less. Correct me if I'm wrong. How would you guys like a wide reciever situation like that? I'm curious.

Basicly, yes, I think you guys should pick up Owens if you have the chance.

 

[Doomsday101]

Rewind to a year and a half ago.

Now hear me out. Don't believe the image that the media paints of TO. Garcia was as much to blame as Owens in the media circus. Terrell Owens just wants to play for a winner! He's not about the money, he just wants to play for an organization that knows how to win, and how to deal with the media. San Fran is a joke. He needs a strong head coach, like Reid, and leaders in the locker room: like Dawkins, McNabb, Chad Lewis, etc. The Eagles have that leadership, they are a winning organization, and they are used to dealing with an overzealous media. Owens just needs a fresh start.

Now fast forward back to today. I've learned my lesson. I know who spoke the truth those days. I find myself repeating words I heard from 49er fans spring of 04. Deja vu hit me like a knife in the back, with an evil twist.

Could TO be the ultimate mercenary? A rent-a-player with a one year lease? Perhaps. That's kind of how your quarterback situation has been since Aikman, more or less. Correct me if I'm wrong. How would you guys like a wide reciever situation like that? I'm curious.

Basicly, yes, I think you guys should pick up Owens if you have the chance.

Spoken like a true eagles fan. I have no doubt people will be laughing their ars off if Dallas were to do this just as many laughed about Philly signing him.