In football, wide receivers catch and drop passes. When it comes to Terrell Owens, Pro Football Hall of Fame voters are guilty of the latter.
Owens’ NFL career spanned 14 seasons and five teams (San Francisco, Philadelphia, Dallas, Cincinnati, Buffalo). In his career, Owens caught 1,078 passes for 15,934 yards and 153 touchdowns. The yardage ranks second in NFL history while his touchdowns are third on the all-time list.
He was a six-time Pro Bowler and five times was selected first-team All-Pro and three times led the NFL in touchdowns. Owens was named to the All Decade Team for the 2000s.
The last two years, Owens has been eligible to be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Both times, Owens was denied. In the most recent class, he did not even make the Top Ten. Owens detractors, and even supporters, would say he was as equally known for being controversial and creating firestorms on every team he played for as a professional.
Boston Herald columnist Ron Borges offered another reason against Owens’ qualifications, pertaining to dropped passes:
Borges is an accomplished journalist and I respect his work but I could not disagree with him more. Should Owens have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer? I could go either way with that argument. Owens’ numbers say first-ballot but because of the baggage he accumulated, the teams he played for, could not get rid of him fast enough.
I can understand not putting him as a first-ballot Hall of Famer because of the logjam of receivers not yet enshrined. However, there is absolutely no way on God’s Green Earth that Owens should not have a bust in Canton, Ohio.
If you do not know whether or not Owens belongs in the Hall of Fame, you have already thought about it too much. Do the words paralysis by analysis mean anything to you? I know eras change but Owens simply by the numbers is one of the five best receivers ever to play the game.
OK, so he did not make many friends in the media and had a reputation for being a bad teammate. In all walks of life, do you ever make apologizes on whether or not people like you? I understand why Owens is not enshrined, partially because the media is so butthurt because he was not good to them.
Who cares? This is football, not the Boys Scouts. Owens being in the Hall of Fame is such a no-brainer it kills me.
To take it a step further, I think it goes beyond people holding a grudge against Owens. It’s as if those with Hall of Fame voters want to show you that they know more than you about what goes into a player being great just because they write about it and go to football games. That is exactly the kind of arrogance that comes with sports writers who have been stuck behind word processors, computers and typewriters way too long.
Sure, Owens was a pain in the rear end but for all the drama he brought Monday-Saturday, give me the great performances he brought on any given Sunday. The one that remains historic was how he came back from a broken fibula on December, 19, 2004, against the Dallas Cowboys to play in Super Bowl XXXIX against the New England Patriots. Philadelphia ultimately lost 24-21 but Owens was a monster that day in catching nine passes for 122 yards.
The people that make arguments against Owens’ qualifications for enshrinement are only letting you know how unworldly they really are and how they only think sports works in a perfect vacuum with nothing but choirboys pulling all the strings.
I was a sports reporter for 18 years until changing careers. Most of my time was spent covering high school athletics in the Napa Valley with a smattering of freelance work for an Oakland Raiders fan magazine.
As a high school sports reporter, I was part of an all-Napa County selection team. I can honestly tell you with a straight face that I never voted against a youngster’s candidacy because I did not like him or her, the parents or the coach. If their performance said, “no brainer all-county,” they got my vote.
For Coach of the Year votes, I never voted against someone because I had issues with them. The coach that was the biggest pain in the butt for me was a girls basketball coach whose name I won’t mention. Fortunately, said coach’s team won only about 34 percent of their games so it was a non-issue.
By no means am I comparing an All-Napa County vote to a Pro Football Hall of Fame vote but it’s about principle.
Bottom line, TO belongs in the Hall of Fame, even if he never gave his mouth a TO.
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