Afternoon Baseball

Terrell Owens is a smart man. Probably a decent man in private and with his family. Clearly a hard-working man who dedicates himself in preparation to his job. Also appears to be a man of faith, even if God is the only being he considers higher than himself.
But he's apparently also self-destructive in a way that malcontent/outspoken athletes such as Deion Sanders, Warren Sapp, Barry Bonds, Charles Barkley, Randy Moss and others are not. They gripe, or have moments of controversy, but ultimately if you have a really big problem with them, it's much more likely to be a personal thing and not something based on their actions, words, or athletic performance.
T.O. appears much more in the line of Ron Artest, Marty McSorley, John Rocker, Theo Fleury, latter-day Dennis Rodman, and others, who, for a myriad of reasons and specific incidents, had signature events overshadow the much-good that they did on the playing field and had their careers irreparably altered. T.O. doesn't know where the line is, or doesn't care, and may be to the point where his world is closed off to anyone's thinking or reality save his own. It would be sad and tragic if this was the case.
How Owens is far from the only one to blame...


But just as ESPN used and abused Maurice Clarett, they were only too happy to have this "exclusive" interview with T.O. and get him to say all sorts of things insulting the Eagles, insulting Donovan McNabb, and all-around angering the Eagles' organization. The Eagles, of course, continued their trend of ignoring the problem until it explodes, then acting shocked and hurt.
Then, surprise, surprise, the ESPN.com and ESPN-TV analysts line up with guns blazing, ready to denounce this terror. They even bring out, after the fact, that T.O. fought with "team ambassador" Hugh Douglas after Douglas marched unannounced into the training room and said guys were faking injuries. What a bastard. T.O., of course, not the guy who doesn't play anymore making crazy statements without any fact and trying to bait players into throwing a punch.

But wait. Douglas is only the ambassador, which is a bogus title in the first place, because he lost all his talent in the last year and got cut during training camp. T.O. actually defends Douglas in that fabled ESPN interview, saying how the Eagles were too eager to let go, once it was convenient for them, the man who revitalized their defense in the McNabb era. So Douglas calls out T.O. on an injury, when T.O. hasn't missed any time, and does it in a way that no coach, no professional, would ever do -- in front of the whole team in a manner designed to embarass a high-profile and understandably sensitive player.

But back to this scandalous interview. Sure, he takes some shots at McNabb. Why not? He's won exactly zero games that have mattered in his career. Winning the NFC title game last year? Um, sorry, but if you stop Michael Vick, which the Eagles defense is more than capable of doing, then you stop the Falcons. That was a game that had the Eagles lost, the owner could have legitimately said, "What am I wasting my time trying to build a winner around this guy for?"
But the other NFC championship losses, especially the two at home, were showcases for the offensive ineptitude of the Eagles, mostly in the lack of wideouts or running backs, but also in the limits of an otherwise very talented quarterback. And the Super Bowl? The Patriots didn't win that, the Eagles lost it. And who, fairly or not, should be held to task? Well, first, Andy Reid (like that will happen), and second, Dononvan McNabb.
Quite frankly, T.O. is a jerk, an ass, whatever, for constantly saying these things. But like any good bully, or even well-meaning jokester, the overly sensitive are like wounded prey. McNabb should stop running to his mother for soup every time somebody says something mean about him.

This is another failure of ESPN, one that, unfortunately, is a result of the terrible idea to have Rush Limbaugh their network to talk football. Because of his stupid, out of line and untrue comments about McNabb, ESPN now can't say anything bad about McNabb. This isn't because people will react by remembering Limbaugh. A legitimate criticism would be accepted. But it's because ESPN constantly has Limbaugh in the back of its collective mind, and after all, it's much easier to go after the designated malcontent/angry black guy. In football, this guy just happens to be T.O., just as ESPN has Bonds for baseball and Artest/Iverson/anyone that breathes funny in basketball.

So yeah, T.O. causes his own problems, but ESPN has done everything they can to facilitate this turn of events, and the Philadelphia Eagles, by allowing this to continue into the regular season, were forced to also push events to this conclusion. Meanwhile, Donovan McNabb appears to be as incapable of providing leadership, as feeble and as out of energy when dealing with T.O. as he was in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl against New England. And I suppose Hugh Douglas is still team ambassador, because every good diplomat is supposed to get people suspended/fired by direct provocation. Nice.