T.O., T.O., Where fore art thou T.O.?

This year on Thanksgiving all sports fans, and those married to us, have something other than family, security, and a juicy turkey to be thankful for. Today, Arbitrator Richard Bloch upheld the Philadelphia Eagles right to suspend the man more important than any team, Mr. There Is An I in Team, aka Terrell Owens. Anyone in Hamilton County that can hollar at Chad Johnson over his iron gate can proclaim with might: "you signed it, now shut up and play!".

The following rant is my opinion on the Terrell saga, soon to be know in Philadelphia as "War and Peace, Part Deux".

1. David Joseph ~ This entire situation would not even be taking up our time if David Joseph had just placated more to Terrell. He didn’t. Therefore, upon firing Joseph, Terrell went out and signed an agent, named by Sports Illustrated as “the most hated man in football” who was quoted as saying: “I don't lie. I just manipulate everything within my power to benefit my client." Well, I believe that this sort of “truth” that Drew Rosenhaus possesses is similar to the “truth” told by Bill Clinton, which resulted in his impeachment. Had Mr. Joseph coddled TO’s ego at every turn and let him know that he was more important than the Eagles, perhaps TO wouldn’t have fired him.

2. Drew Rosenhaus ~ As eluded to above, Mr. Rosenhaus is an honest person who seemingly knows no boundaries when he is protecting his clients interests. Surely he must have advised Terrell over the course of the past months that he should cool off and play hard while he handles the contract issue. That is what he gets paid to do and playing football is what TO gets paid to do, so I can’t envision him not passing that advice on to his client while telling him that publicly smearing the “face of the organization” (like it or not, but McNabb is said face) will not assist him in his undying pursuit of a renegotiated contract. Somehow I think if Drew Rosenhaus walked into a bathroom and urinated on the wall, he would deny it when asked if he urinated on the floor (where the urine puddled as gravity did its thing). He would deny this to the grave. Upon being presented with video evidence clearly showing him, without mistake, urinating on the wall he would respond that you were told the truth and never lied to! He would exclaim “you didn’t ask me if I urinated on the wall, you asked me if I urinated on the floor! I told you the truth!” Well Mr. Clinton, excuse me....Mr. Rosenhaus, even a third grader knows that you understood the question and deliberately manipulated the situation to benefit your interests as you would for your client.

3. The National Football League ~ Shame on them for actually having some control over the teams in their league. How dare they pay players like employees! Why don’t they follow the example set by the oil industry? Upon record earnings this past quarter, the oil industry said that they needed to pay out the $9 billion to its workers as they couldn’t have earned any of it without them. Fannies in seats on Sundays and gas in your tank, it’s all relative. The NFL should never tolerate an owner expecting a player who signed a seven-year contract to uphold his end of the contractual obligation. The NFL may want to make a move to give owners the right to demand money back for poor play. If you want more based on your excellent play, then let’s just balance that table right out.

4. The National Football League Players Association ~ Call the Teamsters and ask them how they get good deals for their members. Call the MLBPA or NBAPA and see how they did it. Take a good, long look at the NHLPA as they got what you’re going to get if you try to get nasty with the NFL. However, you can’t tell me that getting concessions to level the playing field on contracts is out of the question in terms of teams having complete power to waive a player on any given day for any reason and not uphold their end of the contractual obligation. It’s a contract, call a lawyer and figure it out. Already have some? Find better ones.

5. The Media ~ They exploit situations like this like arsonists at a bonfire. They stand in Terrell’s driveway and throw ridiculous statements at him for him to comment, go back to the studio for editing, and put an out of context sound bite out there for everyone to be mislead. Michael Irvin, you’re part of this consortium. You are moronic for ever posing whether Brett Favre would make them a better team.

6. Mr. Terrell Owens ~ You, above all of the other guilty parties, could have single-handedly prevented all of this ugliness from gracing the airwaves. You could be practicing today for a game on one of sports grandest stages – Monday Night Football. You could have acted responsibly at any point and chosen candor, and in case you’re wondering we don’t care if Jeff Garcia is a rat or a homosexual and neither should you. You should have chosen to surround yourself with people that had the best interests of Terrell Owens at heart. (That would include people that don’t profit directly from you Terrell, in case you need help clearing that up.) You should understand the values that you are trying to teach your own children. You should know, as a self-proclaimed fighter, that if you stand so strongly for a cause, be prepared to pay the price. Your stand against unjust treatment, underpayment, and social inadequacy has resulted in your alienation of anyone and everyone in a position to help you. Please take notice that you haven’t alienated Drew Rosenhaus and properly infer that he can’t help you. You should have known that you crossed the line from the repeated warnings you received. Isn’t that similar to the warning ignored as a child that resulted in a “good whipping” that an apology couldn’t get you out of? Have you ever punished your own apologizing child and told them that they had the chance to stop, ignored the warnings, and now “I’m sorry” just don’t cut it?

7. The Philadelphia Eagles ~ You knew what you were in for when you signed TO. Cry me a river. Donovan is the face of your organization, make him live up to it. Reprimand him for publicly taking the cause for Westbrook but not Owens. Who started what is irrelevant if you want to “be the bigger man”, which is a title McNabb has readily accepted. Look at how you spend your money in Philly. You have one of the worst rushing “attacks” in the NFL and you just resigned your starting running back to a lucrative deal. John Madden stated your running attack was bad, right before he applauded the extension of Westbrook’s contract so maybe it isn’t just you. However, you just signed a career third down back to the kind of money that doesn’t let you pursue a running back that can actually run the football. I bet a Terrell Owens and Brian Westbrook for Shaun Alexander and Joe Jurevicius deal looks pretty good now. Of course, Mike Holmgren is smarter than that and therein lays your dilemma. You’ve made your bed; time to lay in it. Good luck with that.

Part of me hopes that it gets worked out and TO fires Rosenhaus. Part of me hopes that they follow through with the deactivation and make him watch from New Jersey for the rest of the year. It would be even more cynically rewarding to see Philly place TO on the practice squad for the next five seasons and smile when writing his game checks. A much larger part of me hopes that the NFL owners unilaterally agree not to negotiate with Drew Rosenhaus. All they need to do is make one offer, take it or leave it, for all of his clients and then change their phone numbers. Expose the shark, his word not mine, for what he really is – a liability to the negotiations of a better deal. He’s a bad used car salesman; it only takes one time to know you NEVER want to do business with him again. I think one thing is for certain though; the outcome of this debacle will change contract negotiations in the NFL forever, if not in all professional sports.

If you’re still reading this....wow....I hope it was worth your while.


Go Bucks!