Terrell Owens book out " TO"

[mary owen]

"T.O. says that no quarterback has the right to treat a teammate like that."

 

but it's okay for him to yell at coaches and other qb's in the heat of battle.

This guy feels like a certain respect should be paid to him yet he will never expect himself to reciprocate that standard to others.

 

But let's get real. The QB should be the Field General out there and I'd bet that most QB's tell certain players in the huddle to STFU. I would expect it to be standard when a teammate, especially one as selfish and vocal as T.O., gets in the face of the General.

[MattyT]

T.O. remembers being "surprised and disappointed," but decided to stay silent...

719092[/snapback]

Okay, well now we KNOW he's lying.

[Orton's Arm]

you have to remember that anyone who gets down in the gutter with owens ends up looking sullied -- just think of jeff garcia, who didn't do anything wrong. just by responding -- which he didn't do much of, by the way -- he looked kind of bad.  as for mcnabb, he has been a solid citizen since his days at syracuse, and is great qb to boot.  i'll allow him the occasional overreaction (and that's probably too strong a term) given the source of the complaints against him.

I never felt Garcia looked bad by responding. But McNabb's whole response to the situation was in an entirely different category. TO wills himself back from an injury to have over 100 receiving yards in the Super Bowl. The Eagles lose the Super Bowl, in part because McNabb got tired and took too much time in the huddle. So now TO's annoyed that McNabb's lack of conditioning may have cost him a once-in-a-lifetime chance at a Super Bowl ring TO worked so hard to get.

 

The next year, TO created bad blood between himself and his team through that holdout silliness. There was no excuse for that behavior. On the other hand, it was done in the context of a contract dispute; however unjustified the dispute and TO's negotiating tactics may have been. Once the situation sorted itself out (as it eventually did) McNabb should have let things be.

 

But when TO was on a sports show, he was asked whether the Eagles would be undefeated if Brett Favre was their quarterback. (McNabb had been playing badly.) TO responded to this question by saying that he had so much respect for Favre he felt the Eagles would be undefeated with him at QB. This comment got Owens suspended for a week, while the Eagles decided what further action to take.

 

I'd bet any money that during that week, the Eagles staff asked McNabb whether he felt the breach between himself and Owens could be healed. Playing at a Hall of Fame level on Sundays, as Owens did, ought to have been an apology for far worse things than hurting McNabb's feelings. McNabb said publicly that he no longer felt TO should be on the Eagles. Later he said that had he been unfavorably compared to another black QB, TO's comments wouldn't have been nearly as big a deal to him.

 

In essence, McNabb forced the Eagles' best player off the team because he created a racial situation out of nothing. In doing so, he significantly lessened the chances for himself and his teammates to get a Super Bowl ring. The fact that none of McNabb's teammates have spoken out in his favor speaks volumes about how he handled himself in this situation.