New Pro Football Hall of Famer Jason Taylor is disappointed that Terrell Owens won’t be with him on enshrinement day in Canton.
Taylor said this morning on PFT Live that he’s baffled that Owens wasn’t selected.
“I don’t get it,” Taylor said. “His numbers, football wise? Come on. He stacks up for sure. He can wreck your team on Sunday. His all-time numbers stand and show he’s one of the top receivers and I think a Pro Football Hall of Famer. People have different agendas, people have different opinions. The people who have the votes are the ones who matter, and for whatever reason, they keep -- I don’t want to say picking on T.O., but they keep beating him up a little bit for some of the off-the-field stuff, the distractions, he’s left teams and all this stuff.”
Taylor said from what he’s heard, Owens wasn’t the disruptive presence that people made him out to be.
“I was talking to Jerry Jones a little bit about it and he said the same thing: T.O. was great in Dallas,” Taylor said. “He understands T.O., he got T.O., and T.O. deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and he wasn’t these things that some people are saying. It’s a shame, I hate to see it, it’s disappointing because his on-field play was so amazing. But sometimes the things we say or do off the field rub people wrong and unfortunately people hold that against him.”
Taylor said that great football players can sometimes be difficult people, but that doesn’t mean they’re not good teammates. Owens, in Taylor’s view, was a player whose greatness easily overshadows his sometimes difficult personality.