By tolerating Owens, Cowboys will benefit
by Jack McCaffery, Times Sports Columnist
10/17/2006
PHILADELPHIA -- The parade wasn’t televised, but it must have been a pip, for the Eagles had at long last won their championship,Terrell Owens scored no touchdowns, did no interpretive dances and, along with the rest of the Dallas Cowboys, did not win a game in the Linc.
Drop the confetti. Blast the fireworks. Strike up the marching band, Andy Reid doing the drum master high step.
Celebrate.
It was just over a week ago, for what it was, it was a slice of football brilliance. The Eagles not only couldn’t afford to have Owens beat them for it would cause them grief in the standings, but they couldn’t afford to give their former wide receiver the last-laugh option.
So they double-teamed him, attacked the immobile Drew Bledsoe, and won by 14. Rightfully, then, Reid was the NFL’s Coach of the Week. The Eagles not only won a game -- they won Their Game. They shut down Owens, and better still for them, made one of his replacements, Hank Baskett, the NFL’s Rookie of the Week.
"I might be the happiest chubby guy in Philadelphia," Reid said, "since Shawn Andrews lost all that weight." And as Reid was in the midst of that ho-ho-ho, Owens was just down the hall, torching Bledsoe, reminding an overflow crowd of reporters of just which Cowboy was, "pulling the trigger."
And for a week, the celebration raged, especially when Owens reacted exactly as the Birds expected him to act -- lashing out at his passing game coordinator, Todd Haley, that after being heard to scream, "What am I doing here?" Yes, it was all playing out as the Eagles expected, and as a bonus, there had even been an unscheduled midnight run to the emergency room for Owens to have medication pumped out of his ever-raging mouth.
He was trouble. He was loud. He was criticizing the quarterback. He was fighting with the assistant coaches. And the Cowboys couldn’t beat the Eagles.
Then came Sunday -- and the proof that there are two ways for a football operation to handle Terrell Owens, and that the way the Eagles did so was the wrong way. When Owens criticized Donovan McNabb and was flip with offensive coordinator Brad Childress, the Eagles’ way was to have him fired. Why not? Hadn’t Reid once made a motivational speech to brainwashed businessmen, stressing that it doesn’t matter which employee fills any particular spot, just as long as the system is in place? Who needs a Hall of Fame pass-catcher if he is going to have the cheek to reject a nodding acquaintance with a coach?
That’s what the Eagles did when Owens became a distraction: They sent him away. They did one other thing, too: They finished 6-and-10. And while there were other reasons for that fall from the Super Bowl to last place in the NFC East -- McNabb did have a sports hernia that ended his season -- it remained factual that once Owens left, so did any chance for the Birds to repeat as conference champions.
The Cowboys did it the other way -- the way the Eagles should have done it, had they not been so addicted to control that their official Web site once was caught sharing the belief that the organization "would rather go 0-16 than yield to Owens" in a contract beef. The Cowboys did it the other way, because they would rather do anything than finish 0-16. A matter of taste, that.
So when they saw Owens stomping around the Linc sidelines, the Cowboys barely yawned. And when they heard him complaining about an assistant coach, they resisted any primal urge to reach for the depth chart and an eraser. They knew what he meant when he asked who was pulling the trigger, and that Bledsoe was his target -- yet they didn’t allow their quarterback to mope around.
What the Cowboys did was ignore Terrell Owens. They ignored him, put him in the lineup, had him score 18 points and pulled even with the Eagles in the NFC East loss column on a day when Hank Baskett didn’t make a catch in a loss at New Orleans.
And what part of that plan is so outrageous, considering that the business the Cowboys have chosen -- the Eagles, too -- is to collect the world’s finest football players and pay them to win games? Why is it so difficult to ignore Owens, even if what he says often is childish, needlessly irritating, quite often wrong and decreasingly entertaining? What is he, the ambassador to Russia, or just a football player with a high-speed jaw?
What Terrell Owens says doesn’t matter. It never has. It’s air being forced through his smile. That’s it. Yet the Eagles couldn’t tolerate it, even though Owens promised to show up on Sundays and perform to skills that all sides acknowledge are spectacular.
The Cowboys chose to tolerate Owens and dismiss his babble. And not only did they do so Sunday, but they received an odd benefit. By the time they’d virtually matched the Eagles’ record, give or take a bye week, the Cowboys not only had Owens back to form, but were watching as he shook hands with Haley in joyful celebration.
No, this handy, little case study is not ready for a conclusion, for those arrive in increments. The Cowboys’ handling of Owens will be judged by how they finish the season, not by whether they beat the Houston Texans.
But the Eagles cut Owens for his behavior and finished in last place.
The Cowboys ignored almost identical behavior, and moved closer to first. So reasons to celebrate are everywhere. And it’s just a matter of who is doing the celebrating.
10/17/2006
PHILADELPHIA -- The parade wasn’t televised, but it must have been a pip, for the Eagles had at long last won their championship,Terrell Owens scored no touchdowns, did no interpretive dances and, along with the rest of the Dallas Cowboys, did not win a game in the Linc.
Drop the confetti. Blast the fireworks. Strike up the marching band, Andy Reid doing the drum master high step.
Celebrate.
It was just over a week ago, for what it was, it was a slice of football brilliance. The Eagles not only couldn’t afford to have Owens beat them for it would cause them grief in the standings, but they couldn’t afford to give their former wide receiver the last-laugh option.
So they double-teamed him, attacked the immobile Drew Bledsoe, and won by 14. Rightfully, then, Reid was the NFL’s Coach of the Week. The Eagles not only won a game -- they won Their Game. They shut down Owens, and better still for them, made one of his replacements, Hank Baskett, the NFL’s Rookie of the Week.
"I might be the happiest chubby guy in Philadelphia," Reid said, "since Shawn Andrews lost all that weight." And as Reid was in the midst of that ho-ho-ho, Owens was just down the hall, torching Bledsoe, reminding an overflow crowd of reporters of just which Cowboy was, "pulling the trigger."
And for a week, the celebration raged, especially when Owens reacted exactly as the Birds expected him to act -- lashing out at his passing game coordinator, Todd Haley, that after being heard to scream, "What am I doing here?" Yes, it was all playing out as the Eagles expected, and as a bonus, there had even been an unscheduled midnight run to the emergency room for Owens to have medication pumped out of his ever-raging mouth.
He was trouble. He was loud. He was criticizing the quarterback. He was fighting with the assistant coaches. And the Cowboys couldn’t beat the Eagles.
Then came Sunday -- and the proof that there are two ways for a football operation to handle Terrell Owens, and that the way the Eagles did so was the wrong way. When Owens criticized Donovan McNabb and was flip with offensive coordinator Brad Childress, the Eagles’ way was to have him fired. Why not? Hadn’t Reid once made a motivational speech to brainwashed businessmen, stressing that it doesn’t matter which employee fills any particular spot, just as long as the system is in place? Who needs a Hall of Fame pass-catcher if he is going to have the cheek to reject a nodding acquaintance with a coach?
That’s what the Eagles did when Owens became a distraction: They sent him away. They did one other thing, too: They finished 6-and-10. And while there were other reasons for that fall from the Super Bowl to last place in the NFC East -- McNabb did have a sports hernia that ended his season -- it remained factual that once Owens left, so did any chance for the Birds to repeat as conference champions.
The Cowboys did it the other way -- the way the Eagles should have done it, had they not been so addicted to control that their official Web site once was caught sharing the belief that the organization "would rather go 0-16 than yield to Owens" in a contract beef. The Cowboys did it the other way, because they would rather do anything than finish 0-16. A matter of taste, that.
So when they saw Owens stomping around the Linc sidelines, the Cowboys barely yawned. And when they heard him complaining about an assistant coach, they resisted any primal urge to reach for the depth chart and an eraser. They knew what he meant when he asked who was pulling the trigger, and that Bledsoe was his target -- yet they didn’t allow their quarterback to mope around.
What the Cowboys did was ignore Terrell Owens. They ignored him, put him in the lineup, had him score 18 points and pulled even with the Eagles in the NFC East loss column on a day when Hank Baskett didn’t make a catch in a loss at New Orleans.
And what part of that plan is so outrageous, considering that the business the Cowboys have chosen -- the Eagles, too -- is to collect the world’s finest football players and pay them to win games? Why is it so difficult to ignore Owens, even if what he says often is childish, needlessly irritating, quite often wrong and decreasingly entertaining? What is he, the ambassador to Russia, or just a football player with a high-speed jaw?
What Terrell Owens says doesn’t matter. It never has. It’s air being forced through his smile. That’s it. Yet the Eagles couldn’t tolerate it, even though Owens promised to show up on Sundays and perform to skills that all sides acknowledge are spectacular.
The Cowboys chose to tolerate Owens and dismiss his babble. And not only did they do so Sunday, but they received an odd benefit. By the time they’d virtually matched the Eagles’ record, give or take a bye week, the Cowboys not only had Owens back to form, but were watching as he shook hands with Haley in joyful celebration.
No, this handy, little case study is not ready for a conclusion, for those arrive in increments. The Cowboys’ handling of Owens will be judged by how they finish the season, not by whether they beat the Houston Texans.
But the Eagles cut Owens for his behavior and finished in last place.
The Cowboys ignored almost identical behavior, and moved closer to first. So reasons to celebrate are everywhere. And it’s just a matter of who is doing the celebrating.
posted by The Gryphon at 6:33 PM
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