Eagles Cut Off Nose

The suddenly less rotund Andy Reid is so eager to drop weight that he's apparently willing to cut off his nose to spite his face.

I made my feelings about T.O. known in the latest Breakfast Table, as did my friend and colleague Scott Pianowski. Did yesterday's events make me change a somewhat pro-Owens stance?

No. I'm not hear to stand in judgment of Owens or Reid or his teammates. People and situations are the way they are. The challenge in life is always to find the areas where our circles overlap. Owens wants to be a great player. The Eagles presumably want great players. And his teammates presumably want to play with great players so that they win and have that success add to their lives financially and in less tangible ways.*

Instead of finding commonality of interest, Eagles players (at least according to published reports) and management have made things immeasurably worse.

But the Eagles are emboldened by a very non-friendly media that simply does not like Owens. I won't speculate why that is here, because that's not the point of this entry (though the answer is obvious). But when the reports say, "Owens Leaves Camp" (when he was expelled by Reid according to those same reports) and, "Owens Seeks to Renegotiate 7-year, $49 million deal he signed last year," well, it's just too tempting for everyone involved to put the screws to Owens. I think Owens is a breath of fresh air in a very stuffy sport. (The block party was a stroke of promotional genius.) I liked the Sharpie and the pom-poms, too. Owens has a tremendous ego, but that's probably why he's such a great player and why he pushes his body to the limits of human conditioning (going shirtless was also a powerful way of illustrating what the Eagles are denying themselves).

Owens is also a smart guy who generally makes good points. He does deserve more money from the Eagles after he risked his career against doctor's orders for their benefit in February. As it stands, Owens is due a huge bonus next spring and if the Eagles decide to cut him beforehand, he's playing 2005 for relative peanuts. Should he live with that deal he signed? His February sacrifice makes that tougher for me to answer. But he's got a much better chance to secure that portion of his signing bonus now than he does in March. He knew what he was getting into last summer, you say? Well, so did Philly.

Owens is not talking and singing autographs. As Owens said, he's not paid to do that. If he's unhappy with the terms of his contract, why do anything more than what is required? He's not talking to teammates. The Eagles are to blame for that because they humiliated Owens by refusing to even allow him to save face in the contractual stare-down. Owens' pride is wounded. That's why he's not interacting with anyone outside the two players (Greg Lewis and Jeremiah Trotter) for whom he feels genuine affection.

Step back for a second. Forget about what you've heard and how events are being spun. Who is being more petulant here, more childish? Owens or Reid and the rest of the Eagles? To me, it's a toss-up.

*Ironically, while Owens gets criticized for putting himself above the team, these players are putting their emotional needs (not having the Owens "distraction") above what is so obviously in the team's interest, i.e., benefiting from Owens' unquestioned abilities as a football player.