Section 215
Fansided

Terrell Owens Says he was ‘Never’ a Bad Teammate

By Tim Kelly

facebooktwitterreddit

Terrell Owens still doesn’t get it…

If you had a chance to watch yesterday evening’s NFL Network documentary A Football Life: Terrell Owens, you certainly didn’t walk away from the hour long show feeling unentertained. You did, however, walk away knowing that while Owens has had a few birthdays since being out of the league, he’s hasn’t come around on apologizing for being himself.

I entered the documentary expecting it to be more along the lines of Owens trying to prove that at age 41 he understands the mistakes that he’s made and wants one last chance to be in the league. Instead, the documentary became much more about Owens explaining his upbringing — one that was far from ideal — and using that to explain how he became the man that he is.

Many of us since Owens’ retirement have kind of gone back and allowed ourselves to realize how great of an individual player Owens was. I think, though he wasn’t as talented as Randy Moss, he was more consistently great and I would rank him as the second best receiver of all-time. But he’s just so unlikeable.

I think the documentary reminded me that while there were plenty of talented “diva” receivers during the 2000’s era, many of them were “fun” villains, like Chad Johnson. Owens was a great player, but he was (and still is) just incredibly difficult to get behind, even as someone who usually roots for villains.

Owens still seems to be “me-first” and incredibly self unaware. He demonstrated as such when he spoke to former teammate Ike Reese and Michael Barkann on 94 WIP yesterday when he was promoting the documentary.

"First of all, I was never not a good teammate. Considering who media, journalists and columnists–whoever was covering our team, depending on who they ask and depending on what was going on, yeah, there was a lot of tensions that kind of flair up. Depending on who you are, some guys may not have liked me prior to coming on to their team. So they knew that prior to me coming in there were a lot of preconceived notions about me.But I had a number of guys that when I walked in that locker room from other teams, considering what they had already heard from other teams, I’ve had guys that pulled me to the side like, “man, dude, you’re a great guy. I never knew you were such a great person.”They already knew the athletic part, the player part, but in terms of my character, which I felt like had been grossly misportrayed and in a lot of people’s mind misunderstood, I couldn’t control that. But a lot of it had to do with the way that I was raised."

I don’t doubt for a second that some teammates really liked Owens. He was an all-time great player and by all accounts had as good of a work ethic as the league has ever seen. That’s contagious and teammates like being around guys like that.

Throughout the documentary, Owens continued to reference that his grandmother raised him to always speak his mind as reasoning for lashing out at teammates on the sideline or getting disgusted each individual time that the ball wasn’t thrown his way when he was open. Teammates don’t like being around guys like that, regardless of what their reasoning (excuse) for being that way is.

The overwhelming takeaway from the documentary was that Owens was kept away from having friends as a child and despite spending 15 years in the league, he never learned how to connect with other humans on a personal level. Instead, his antics somehow managed to overshadow that he was undisputedly one of the five greatest players to ever play his position.

Next: Semi-Coherent Philadelphia Eagles vs. New Orleans Saints Preview

More from Section 215

Home/Philadelphia Eagles