Karma strikes Owens

NFL training camps will officially open tomorrow when rookies from the Cleveland Browns report to the team’s facility in Berea, Ohio.

Over the following 10 days all players on all NFL rosters—minus those rookies who have yet to sign, anyway—will be in camp.

But one name will, in all likelihood, be conspicuously absent on any of the 32 NFL rosters—Terrell Owens.

The mercurial wideout has not been able to latch on with a club since the one-year deal he signed with Buffalo last March expired earlier this spring.

There have been nibbles—maybe Washington, Cincinnati or Oakland—if you believe the rumours, but no team has been willing to sign a player that is just one year removed from three consecutive 1,000-plus yards and double-digit touchdown seasons.

Sure, Owens’ numbers in Buffalo were pedestrian at best—55 receptions for 829 yards and five touchdowns—but it should come as no surprise that the real lack of suitors stems from his attitude.

His list of offences is so egregious that it even overshadows what is, on paper (1,006 receptions, 14,951 yards, 144 touchdowns), a pretty stellar career resume.

It suggests that eventually karma does catch up; eventually your talent, no matter how hard you work to maintain it, begins to dry up.

(Just ask Barry Bonds.)

And when it happens, people who were willing to overlook your shortcomings are no longer so forgiving.

So, no, I don’t feel bad for T.O.

Could he still be a factor for a good team?

Absolutely.

He may not be at the Pro Bowl level he once was, but certainly he has enough juice left to be a contributor—especially on a team where as something less than the first or second target he would have favourable match-ups.

Maybe this will all go out the window when a team loses a key receiver to injury and Owens is brought back into the fold.

Until then it’s a perfectly fair result for a man who couldn’t put his ego aside for the betterment of his immense talent.

Next question.