Bills receiver Terrell Owens visited on Monday with our Sporting News Radio colleagues, the 2 Live Stews (check us out with the Stews -- a/k/a Ryan and Doug Stewart -- every Thursday at 2:25 p.m. ET).
And Owens focused on the media for making him look bad by twisting his words and/or asking him loaded questions.
Owens said that the questions he was asked after Sunday’s zero catches for zero yards and zero touchdowns performance were aimed at provoking him to say something controversial.
“It really just shows you the angle that the media has taken all these years,” Owens said, via the Buffalo News. “Over the years I’ve always kind of spoken openly about whatever is being asked with my answers, so the last four or five years I’ve kind of noticed that and tried taking some steps to prevent some of those things from happening.
“But [Sunday] as you saw, it was obviously . . . [the media] took some more than initiative to try to get me to kind of go down the wrong path. I know the last two teams that I’ve been on, I felt like I left those teams prematurely due to media interviews that I’ve done and things kind of taken out of context and they created sort of a media whirlwind in the locker room and things kind of went downhill from there. I’m just trying to do the best job I can do as far as answering the questions and trying to be a better teammate and not try to throw people under the bus.”
There are three major problems with T.O.'s position.
First, and as we’ve recently explained, he didn’t leave Philly early because the media twisted his words. He left Philly early because he wanted more money, either from the Eagles or from another team. And he deliberately embarked on a plan to get himself traded or fired.
Second, when a guy claims he’s constantly misunderstood, maybe he should be thinking about taking communication classes, not acting classes.
Third, his effort to not throw people under the bus confirms our belief that he uses passive-aggressive tactics to accomplish the same outcome. When asked, for example, whether he and teammate Lee Evans are being “wasted” in the Bills’ offense, Owens didn’t simply say “no.” He offered up, repeatedly, the mantra that he’s running the plays that are called.
In T.O.'s incredibly simplistic world, such a response is appropriate, because he hasn’t affirmatively thrown anyone under the bus. But what he doesn’t realize is that, when a bus is rolling toward the coaching staff and/or the quarterback and T.O. doesn’t push them out of the way, the end result is the same.
Owens also told the Stews that he spoke to the media after Sunday’s loss to the Saints because he was basically told by the league that he had to make himself available.
“The last couple of games I haven’t done interviews because I’ve done interviews where I’ve been tongue-in-cheek or playful with the interview and again the media has taken those things and misconstrued them and taken them out of context,” Owens said. “So I was trying to take myself out of the situation and not do interviews at all until I had a talk with [NFL Senior Vice President of Public Relations] Greg Aiello and kind of got into a heated discussion with him as far as my stance on not doing postgame interviews because I’m not trying to go down the same road that I’ve been down before.
“So I took the initiative and they told me I had to talk in the postgame. I just went in there and did the best job that I can do without creating any media headlines. Obviously, what I did [Sunday] created headlines.”
Bottom line? He wants to create headlines. He needs to create headlines. But he wants to do it without looking like he’s creating headlines.
T.O. loves the attention. He craves it. But he knows that, based on his history, he now needs to create the impression that he is different.
But he’s not any different. He’s just a little smarter.
Not much, but a little.