You would be hard pressed to cram more drama in the less than two years Terrell Owens spent with the Eagles. There was his original agent screwing up his free agency, there was the broken leg and return for the Super Bowl, and of course, what happened in his driveway on August 10th, 2005. For anyone who wasn’t around then, calling that scene surreal doesn’t do it justice.
Upon his trade to the Eagles (which was crazy in itself), TO signed a 7/$49m contract. He was just happy to get out of San Francisco and to show what he could do. What he didn’t take into account was that his contract was heavily backloaded and didn’t pay him even in the Top 10 of WRs. After dominating in the Super Bowl and showing that he was the best WR in football, Owens hired super-agent Drew Rosenhaus to get him where he thought he should be. Rosenhaus wanted to renegotiate his contract. The Eagles and GM Joe Banner, did not.
Training camp started but it was certainly not business as usual and even all us fans knew it. There was word that Owens was disgruntled and not participating to the best of his abilities. Andy Reid was not happy. There were also barbs aimed at QB Donovan McNabb, like when Owens said that he “wasn’t the one who got tired in the Super Bowl” referencing McNabb retching at the end of the game. Like when you can tell a child is just itching to throw a tantrum, things were simmering.
People were waiting for training camp reports daily to see how the situation played out. No one figured what was coming though. The final straw for coach Andy Reid was a phantom injury and missed autograph session with kids. Reid threw Owens out of practice and suspended him for a week. He also told him to stay in shape while he was home. Owens pulled the kind of move my 10 year old would pull.
TO left practice and headed to his Moorestown, NJ home. At least one reporter followed him to his home and did an initial interview with a very agitated Owens. That should have been it…then the helicopters showed up with the rest of the news media and the circus. In an attempt to see just how far the old adage “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” could go, Owens went from mad to happy spectacle. He took off his shirt, pulled out exercise equipment, and started doing a full blown gym workout right in his driveway. Instead of being defensive about the attention, he answered reporter questions, signed autographs, and even jokingly offered to buy everyone pizza as the crowd got thick.
I’m sure the gracious and gregarious host felt that he was controlling the narrative in front of him just fine and an anger management therapist would probably commend his pivot, but the perspective was much different from afar. All of us and the national masses just saw the star receiver doing situps in his driveway after getting kicked out of practice. This is not what normal people do…ever! Whether it was an act or not, it looked like TO was having an on-air live mental breakdown in his own driveway. There’s no explaining that away to fans and teammates.
There was no coming back from this. We all had high hopes for the 2005 season after making it to the Super Bowl the year before, but those hopes were shattered on August 10th, weeks before the season even started. We all knew there was no coming back from this. Sure enough, the Eagles refused to change his contract (this is probably where Howie Roseman learned to do just the opposite), the feud between Owens and McNabb boiled more and more, and Owens was doing whatever he could to make everyone mad. He wore a jersey of Cowboys WR Michael Irvin on the team plane, got into a fight with Hugh Douglas, and took every swipe he could at McNabb. Finally, in early October the Eagles suspended him for 4 games but deactivated him for the rest of the season. Owens tried to apologize, but it was too late. The Eagles released him at the end of the year.
For years, the Eagles needed a #1 receiver. They finally got one and it lasted all of 1 season. I can understand the arguments that TO signed a contract just a year earlier and should have honored it, but I can also understand that Owens was maybe the best WR in football and underpaid. I don’t care about any of that. Pride on both sides ruined what should have been the best Eagles season ever (at the time) and as a fan, I still don’t want to hear who is to blame.
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