Back in 2006, Terrell Owens set the sports world on fire by daring to compare himself to a few sports legends with the following quote:
"I'm not Superman. I'm human. Michael Jordan doesn't make every shot. Jerry [Rice] hasn't caught every pass. Tiger [Woods] doesn't make every putt. I understand the expectations of me. People want me to catch every ball. The likelihood of that happening is not going to be great. I understand that."
Now, because America's sportswriters are always looking to find fault with Terrell Owens, they were up in arms about that statement. "How dare he compare himself to Jerry Rice, Tiger Woods, and Michael Jordan! He can't even put himself in the same sentence as those guys!"
Fast forward to April 9, 2009, when Terrell Owens said the following quote:
"Other than that, I’m fine. I’ve been called selfish pretty much throughout my career. I think I’m in good company, Jerry Rice has been called selfish before, as well as a number of other guys."
I wrote about this in 2006 and I'm going to write about it again, mostly because I hate sportswriters. I'm not going to pretend that Terrell Owens is an angel or a model teammate, but once again, they're really reaching with this. You'll see that what I said in 2006 is pretty much going to be identical to what I say today:
"But for those of us who don’t think with our anuses, he didn’t compare himself to them at all. For those of us, who aren’t constantly trying to find fault with a guy who can buy and sell, say…sportswriters with the change in his ashtray, he merely said that those guys, who are great, didn’t come through every time and he isn’t going to, either. It’s just not realistic to expect him to. I think that sounds pretty humble, and the sportswriters would think so too if they weren’t busy being all-around assholes."
Actually, I don't think I need to add to that at all.
Whether or not Jerry Rice was actually called "selfish" is beside the point. Nowhere in either of those quotes is T.O. saying that he's comparable to Jerry Rice. It's like when people say "People talked bad about Jesus, too." Unless they can also walk on water, they're not comparing themselves to Jesus. But when you make it your life's mission to hate a guy, then you'll find the negatives wherever you want to. In fact, the article where I got that quote was titled, "Terrell Owens: Criticism of him has been unfair."
It's T.O.'s fault that Dallas didn't make the playoffs because he divided the entire locker room, because the Cowboys are not grown men or anything, who can make their own decisions. T.O. was the serpent who coerced them to play like garbage. T.O. was wrong for choosing not to attend a voluntary workout with his new team, the Buffalo Bills, because even though it's voluntary, T.O. needs to spend time with his new teammates. Mandatory workouts and training camp simply aren't enough time. You'd think sportswriters wouldn't want him there, since it's his destiny to divide the locker room. Since he changed his mind and decided to go, that's just going to give him a headstart or wrecking their season.
Yeah, I'd say the criticism has been a bit much. After all, like the man himself pointed out, "What I find so unfair is that I'm not the only guy out of 32 teams that didn't show up to voluntary and optional weight sessions." No, just the only guy that the sports media wants to bring down. Right, Skip Bayless?
After all, it's not like anything he does will ever have a humble or positive spin put on it. Maybe I should show them the way. The quote I'm going to use is the sentence directly before the quote that caused all of this controversy.
Terrell Owens Actually Does Have Humble Moments
Terrell Owens showed deference to retired Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman when he responded to Aikman's comments about "addition by subtraction" earlier this week. Owens said, "I think he has three Super Bowl rings, so he has the authority to say that."
Man, what an jerk.
No comments:
Post a Comment