I agree with most of what you said here. I'm not a Terrell Owens fan. Never was. Never will be. But the guy is a top 10 receiver in this league.
T.O. definately does a lot of this to himself. He's certainly stupid from the aspect of knowing how to deal with a media that is out to get him. But there's one thing that's very telling.
The average NFL fan thinks T.O. was the reason the 2005 Eagles missed the playoffs. They think it was his presence in the locker room that stole the team from D-Mac and caused them to falter.
Bullsh-t.
McNabb got injured in the first game. That Eagles defense in 2005 was awful. Due to a painful injury and being an already chronically inconsistent player, McNabb and the Eagles offense faltered. They won a few games behind some freak plays (or series of plays) against the Raiders, Chiefs, and Chargers (espicially that blocked FG vs SD, not that I'm complaing after this years Dallas game
). They weren't a good football team. McNabb got hurt, Westbrook got hurt, both of their lines got decemated.
In a season where things were going right, I doubt Andy Reid would have suspended T.O. for making "comments detremental to the team." But the frusteration had to be boiling over in Philly and Reid wasn't about to take any more crap.
T.O. wouldn't have made a damn difference if he was playing. They still would have been void of talent on both sides of the ball.
But the Eagles locker room was very supportive of T.O. In fact, many reports say that more Eagles sided with T.O. than Donovan. So if this was the case, why does the media paint McNabb to be the golden boy, and T.O. to be the villian? There were at the very least two parties at fault, and McNabb is seen as the victim here.
Look the guy's a great team player. He's gritty and plays realtively well through pain. T.O. is not the prototypical team guy. But that doesn't excuse the media's gross biases in this individual situation. This was crappy, horrible journalism the whole way around.
And when it comes to T.O. crappy journalism is a staple.