Terrell Owens: Too Busy Loud Mouth

By: Chicago Sports Review

When he hasn’t been blasting his teammates, especially quarterback Jeff Garcia, or pulling Sharpie pens out of his socks to sign footballs, Terrell Owens has been not-too-patiently waiting for this off-season, when the superstar wide receiver could cancel the remaining years on his contract with the San Francisco 49ers and become a free agent.

Owens is due to make $17.7 million in base salary over the next three seasons, including $5.3 million next year. While that sounds like a lot of money to the average fan, Owens is a relative bargain for one of the NFL’s best receivers. He has been chosen to the last four Pro Bowls, and he and Indianapolis’ Marvin Harrison are the only receivers with more than 5,000 yards and 50 touchdowns over the past four seasons. Owens had 80 catches for 1,102 yards and nine TDs last season; which is an off year for him. In fact, these were his lowest totals since 1999.

Owens had been counting on a big payday in his first venture onto the free-agent market, hoping to land a signing bonus of more than $15 million from Baltimore, Philadelphia, Atlanta or a handful of other teams with the cap space to sign a star receiver, but has continually shot himself in the foot with his antics. There have been continuing questions as to whether Owens’ production on the field was worth his distractions off the field?

Besides denigrating Garcia, Owens openly argued with 49ers coaches, and earned the wrath of NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue by pulling the marker out of his socks, signing a ball after a touchdown catch and giving it to a kid in the stands. Owens almost caused a team fight when, after catching a touchdown against the Cowboys in Texas Stadium a couple of years ago, ran to the 50-yard-line to celebrate on top of the Dallas Star that is at midfield. Future Hall-of-Famer Emmitt Smith ran to get Owens after that incident.

Well, I guess Owens was too busy running off at the mouth to file the necessary paperwork to invalidate the rest of his contract. Owens or his representatives didn’t file the necessary paperwork quickly enough this week to become an unrestricted free agent, according to the NFL Management Council. Owens’ agent, David Joseph, will file a grievance.

Owens was among several players required to file by a new deadline, which recently was moved up 10 days for players who signed their contracts before the league’s 2001 collective bargaining agreement went into effect. Cleveland receiver Dennis Northcutt made a similar mistake. The Browns announced Thursday that Northcutt’s agent failed to void the final three years of his contract by Feb. 19, keeping him with Cleveland.

By missing the deadline, Owens is under contract to San Francisco through 2006. The big winners in this are the 49ers; they expected to lose Owens with no compensation, but now, the team retains the rights to Owens, meaning that he can be traded.

Some of you may know that I have little use for big mouthed, egocentric showoffs like Terrell Owens. The fact that he has been hoist on his own petard amuses me to no end.

E-mail this article to a friend | Printer friendly format

Tags: , , ,

Share This Article

No Comments

No comments yet.

Comment On This Article