Commentary /By Larry Felser
Owens just might be worth all of the distractions
After nearly a decade of performing “Pop Goes the Weasel” the Buffalo Bills stunned their fan base and all of pro football Saturday by setting off a mega-explosion.
The team with which the term “impact player” had become nearly extinct signed the player everyone agrees is loaded with impact, both of the negative and positive variety—the man almost everyone had agreed had made himself an untouchable free agent.
This is a sentence I thought I’d never write:
T. O., Terrell Owens, the one-man parade, is now a Buffalo Bill.
Will it upset team chemistry?Who cares? After what the ticket buyers have been watching since the turn of the century, they were tired of team chemistry that remained as placid as instant pudding.
Will Owens make coaching life difficult for Dick Jauron? Maybe Jauron needs a more difficult coaching life. It wouldn’t be such a bad idea if T. O. screamed at the skipper when he goes into his Hamlet number instead of throwing his red-challenge flag.
For that matter, the Bills’ blockers could use something that would make them angry at someone.
Could it turn out that Owens is so difficult Bills’ management will send him home to contemplate the inside of a doughnut and perform calisthenics in his driveway, just as the Philadelphia Eagles once did? To quote Dick Cheney, “So?” The Bills could have sent three-quarters of their team home to stay for the last two months of the 2008 season and it would have been a relief.
Now let’s look at the bright side. No matter what Owens does here, positive or zany, owner Ralph Wilson won’t react like Jerry Jones of the Cowboys, Jeffrey Lurie of Philadelphia or Denise DeBartolo York of the 49ers did to his antics. Ralph is 90. He’ll be 91 next October. He has seen it all, good, bad or indifferent. He will take Owens with a grain of salt or a belly laugh. Besides, at 90 a good nap will fix just about anything.
For too long Lee Evans has been the only offensive impact player on the Bills. That’s like winning the Miss Antarctica beauty contest. Will he grouse at becoming Owens’ second banana? I doubt it. Evans is a smart guy. He may accept it as a birthday present, since he turns 28 on Wednesday. Besides, even though he was Buffalo’s No. 1 target, for weeks at a time he was in the witness protection program. T. O. may catch most of the bass when they go fishing in Lake Erie but Evans knows there are a lot more just west of the Peace Bridge.
Speaking of birthdays, Owens is 34 now and won’t be 35 until December. I suspect his stay in Buffalo may be two seasons or less. After that Evans will be the Bills’ wise old head.
As for young quarterback Trent Edwards, he’s a Stanford man, very intelligent. He’s been abused by opposition defenses since he left high school. I suspect he’ll be wise enough to look upon T. O. as a drill instructor who will question the legitimacy of his birth and challenge the validity of his IQ but it will be for his own good. Sort of. It may involve public shaming, but a glossy quarterback rating is still a glossy quarterback rating.
By the way, Owens’ agent is Drew Rosenhaus. Friday he told reporters he was in negotiations with a couple of NFL teams where T. O. was likely to land. Here is another sentence I never thought I’d write: The truth was in Rosenhaus.
Let the circus begin.
Larry Felser, former News columnist, appears in Sunday’s editions.
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