Too many times when I turn on ESPN and start watching something about the National Football League, I often feel like Ed Werder is shoving a No. 81 Dallas Cowboys jersey down my throat. I then go onto Yahoo Sports and see headlines of "T.O. says this..." or "T.O. says that..." Quite frankly, I'm sick of the over saturation of Terrell Owens.
My boiling point came sometime during the middle of the season. There was breaking news throughout the world of sports media that T.O. sometimes falls asleep in team meetings. Owens admitted doing something that happens in nearly every football meeting at any level of competition! At this point, I realized that I reached my carrying capacity on how much I could stomach of the Terrell Owens saga.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that Owens is innocent for the things he has said and done. He has burned a lot of bridges in San Francisco, Philadelphia and now possibly even in Dallas. Owens has said a lot of things and been involved in some odd incidents that warrant people to wonder how delusional of an enigma he really is. But at the same time, the T.O. hysteria has reached a level where that it no longer needs to be plastered over every major news wire in America.
Who really cares if there is a chance that he might not be playing another season in Dallas again or the fact that he couldn't participate right away in training camp because of an injury. There are plenty of other players in the league that are not fully ready to go during camp and there is never a 100 percent guarantee that any player will be back to play on the same team the next season.
So let me cast a stone at my colleagues per say, the other higher up members of the sports media. Will the higher ups at "The World Wide Leader in Sports" have Michael Irvin quit interviewing Owens and send "The Playmaker" to the unemployment line where he belongs? Also stop snooping around Owens's garbage cans and peeping into his windows trying to see if he left the toilet seat up. Go out and find another tree in the forest to bark up and stop suffocating us with T.O.!
The press is the one with the ultimate power to dictate what people are subjected to viewing as news on a daily basis, and at the same time holds a great responsibility in being a catalyst to the drama that surrounds Owens. It's time for the major media outlets to be held accountable for the mess that they helped cause.
What should the media being covering more of then? What leads should they be sniffing more heavily on instead of T.O.? Let's start with the Shawne Merriman situation. Pedro Gomez does a wonderful job of stalking Barry Bonds so why hasn't anyone been camping out in Merriman's front yard? If it's because the press feels there is no problem with steroids in football, I think they need to do some more serious investigation.
We could also have seen increased coverage on something more positive, such as on the New Orleans Saints and how they are helping to ease the still ongoing rebuilding process in the city. But for some reason, the media has repeatedly kept this story on the low down.
And chances are you probably missed hearing about the passing of Keeley Dorsey, a 19-year-old freshman running back for University of South Florida that collapsed and died while doing conditioning workouts. Dorsey passed away while trying to improve himself in a sport that he loved to compete in. Reflecting back on his life and specifically what led to his cause of death would have been a very interesting and thought provoking pieces to read.
Yet as it stands now, the sporting world stands on the brink of yet more Owens overload. You can just feel the ground trembling in the wake of another typhoon of T.O. news coverage with the recent retiring of Dallas Cowboy head coach Bill Parcells.
But this time, I will not get drenched again.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
