The Defense of T.O.

  Terrell Owens has recently caused a stir in the media by declining an invitation to attend the NFL Hall of Fame ceremony. After two seasons of failing to be elected for the Hall of Fame, Owens was eventually selected following the Super Bowl this past season. This is the first time in recent memory that a player has declined to attend their induction. Owens recently reached out to ESPN’s Marcellus Wiley and stated, “Sometimes you got to do the wrong thing for the right reason.”

  One can interpret this to mean Owens would like to attend the ceremony, but is choosing to prove a point by not doing so. The point he’s trying to get across is more than likely that of a flawed Hall of Fame selection process. For those who don’t know how the process occurs; there is a committee consisting of one media representative from each pro football city, sixteen at-large selectors (all of whom are active members of the media), and two members of the Hall of Fame. So of the members that make up the selection committee, two are to have been guaranteed to play football. Owens has been quoted after not being selected the past two seasons saying, “I don’t need some writers to validate my history.” This is likely the ‘right reason’ Owens was referring to.

   T.O. is second all time in career receiving yards with 15,934, only trailing the greatest receiver of all- time, Jerry Rice. He is third all-time in career receiving touchdowns with 153, trailing Rice and Randy Moss. Moss is also being inducted into the Hall of Fame this year, but we’ll get to him a little later. Owens is eighth all-time in career receptions with 1,078, trailing only current Hall of Famers or soon to be Hall of Famers Tony Gonzalez, Larry Fitzgerald, and Jason Witten. He is also only the third player in NFL history to be 1st team All-Pro for three different teams, joining first ballot Hall of Famers Ted Hendricks and Deion Sanders. The only knock on Owens has been his attention seeking behavior, believing to cause problems in the locker room.

  Owens does have his handful of controversies over the years. To highlight a few, the San Francisco 49ers and Owens decided to part ways with each other in 2003 following an inconsistent season that included several sideline tirades. After his agent failed to meet a free agency deadline, he was ineligible for free agency and the 49ers had to trade him. He was traded to the Baltimore Ravens, but he refused to play for them and expressed his desire to play for the Philadelphia Eagles. After several negotiations, the three teams worked out a deal sending Owens to Philadelphia. During his time with the Eagles he had a few encounters with the media and his teammates, most notably on November 3, 2005 when he interviewed with ESPN’s Graham Bensinger and took shots at the Eagles franchise while suggesting they’d be better off with Packers QB Brett Favre instead of Donovan McNabb. The Eagles released Owens on March 14, 2006. After signing with the Dallas Cowboys, the only notable run-in with his own team was on October 11, 2006. The Cowboys receiving coach at the time, Todd Haley, chastised Owens for showing up late for practice and they argued about the encounter during a meeting later in the day. Although Owens has a history of self inflicted altercations, he has never been arrested or had legal problems other than a brief child support issue.  

  This brings us back to Randy Moss, who has been selected to the Hall of Fame his first year on the ballot. Moss was as an explosive receiver as the NFL has ever seen; finishing fourth all-time in receiving yards, second in touchdowns, and fifteenth in receptions. All of his career stats are worse than Owens’ besides receiving touchdowns, having 156 compared to Owens 153. Moss played for five different NFL franchises just as Owens did, all while also causing controversies along the way. In 2001, Moss was fined by the Minnesota Vikings and was required to receive anger management counseling for verbally abusing corporate sponsors on the team bus following a loss. In the same year he was questioned about his propensity to take plays off at times, to which he responded by saying, “I play when I want to play.” Moss also made news in 2004 when he left the field early in a loss to the Redskins, causing teammates to confront him in the locker room after the game. These altercations don’t include Moss’ ongoing drama involving marijuana throughout his career, including admitting on HBO in 2005 that he partakes ‘once in a blue moon’, which would violate the league’s substance abuse policy. He was also arrested for battery prior to reaching the NFL and violated his probation testing positive for marijuana, causing his release from the Florida State football program.

  Another player in Owens’ current Hall of Fame class is Ray Lewis who, like Moss, was selected his first season on the ballot. Now Lewis doesn’t have any issues involving his teammates or the Baltimore Ravens, but he did have a questioned run-in with the law. In the year 2000, Ray Lewis was arrested on a count of double murder, but reached a deal with prosecutors in exchange for his testimony against two of his companions, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting. The victim’s blood was found in Lewis’ limo and he had admitted to being with them the night of the murders. The two murders remain unsolved.

   Now if the Hall of Fame selection committee, made up of mostly the media, can overlook Moss and Lewis’ questionable personal behavior because of their success on the football field, I wonder why they couldn’t do the same for Owens. Lewis is a little different than the other two, never having been found guilty, but Moss’ and Owens’ antics are extremely similar. If Moss can be selected his first year on the ballot, I don’t understand why Owens, who has better career stats, wasn’t selected on his first attempt as well. Owens has said he feels the committee is attacking him personally by making him wait to be elected, and I have to agree with him. Owens has never been questioned about taking plays off and has never been arrested, but he had to wait three years to finally be selected. Ranking second all time in any major statistical category, this is ridiculous and I defend T.O. for turning down his invitation to the Hall of Fame Ceremony.

Written by Clifford Buck