The DSB: ESPN’s Mouthpiece Continues to Ride the T.O. Train
September 30, 2009 by dwil
The latest rip on Terrell Owens goes like this: he had no catches Sunday against New Orleans, which snapped his streak of 185 games with at least one catch. Additionally Trent Edwards threw only five passes Owens’ way. This mean Terrell Owens’ skills are eroding before our very eyes. Read and weep:
Skip Bayless yesterday:
“You mean T. Old?”
On the Dallas Cowboys as related to Owens:
“Obviously they don’t have a deep threat on par with the ’06, ’07 Terrell Owens. But last year he – clearly – lost – a – step.. This year he might’a lost two steps. So the point is, they’re a much better team. They have much better unity. Better chemistry. They’re built to last an entire season without Terrell Owens in the huddle because there is no way last year with that guy in the huddle demanding the ball and demanding attention that they could have had back-to-back 200-plus yard rushing games against, tome, one real good defense and one pretty good defense. You gotta give ‘em that. They just, with Jason Garrett, would have had to feed the ball to 81 to keep him happy so they wouldn’t get a negative sound bite after the game. You can’t tell me that’s not a plus right now.”
Doug Stewart: You don’t think it’s a side effect of them running, focusing more on the run because they can’t go downfield.
Bayless: They want to run! They love to run Jason Whitten’s the best pass-catching tight end in football. Would you agree on that? (Actually, that award goes to Dallas Clark, next are Tony Gonzalez and Whitten).
Ryan Stewart: The pass that Roy Williams dropped in the end zone that was in his hands? That would not have been dropped by Terrell Owens.
Bayless: Now, I don’t know about that. I’ve seen him drop a whole bunch of passes.
Ahhh yes. Oewns has lost two steps according to the $1.5 million man. Plus, ESPN’s true mouthpiece revived the “dropped pass” as it relates to Terrell Owens. If readers remember, that statistic was created by stat people at ESPN during Owens’ last days with the Philadelphia Eagles, solely to find some sort of on-field fault with Owens to augment their blanket coverage of Owens’ off-field doings.
Going back to the 2000 seson,the second where Terrell Owens led the team on which he played in receiving (1997 was the first but Jerry Rice led the team in receiving the next two seasons), here are some facts bout teams with Terrell Owens on them and running the ball: With San Francisco in 2000 the Niners, in three games in a row ran for 261, 130, and 136 yards. The 261-yard rushing game was against Dallas. The Niners attempted 47 runs and Owens still caught five balls, two of which were for touchdowns in a 41-17 rout of the Cowboys.
The following game, a 27-20 win against Arizona, they rushed 32 times. Owens did not play in that game. The next week they lost to Oakland 34-28 in overtime. The Niners ran 34 times but Owens also caught 12 passes for 176 yards and two TDs, yet his longest reception was only 31 yards. San Francisco was 6-10 that season.
In 2001, Steve Mariucci’s fifth season as head coach of San Francisco, the 12-4 49ers had nine(!) games where they rushed for over 138 yards and only three total where they rushed for less than 100 yards. Despite the team’s obvious emphasis on the run Owens caught 93 balls for 1412 yards and 16 TDs. Not bad on a team that had a balanced 509 rushes and 506 pass attempts (318 total receptions).
The following season as a team the Niners rushed for over 100 yards in 15 out of 16 regular season games. Owens caught 100 passes for 1300 yards.
What does all this mean?
San Francisco was a balanced team that based its offense on its rushing attack (in Owens’ big year in Philadelphia , the Eagles rushed for over 100 yards only seven of of 16 games and never rushed for more than 160 yards in any game).
Terrell Owens caught plenty of passes and never complained.
But Tuesday morning Skip Bayless awakened to USA Today NFL Writer Jarrett Bell’s description of Owens that corroborated Bayless’ “T-Old” snark:
1. Terrell Owens’ persona might overshadow his declining skills. T.O. is such an industry of his own — reality TV show, heartfelt tweets and other assorted look-at-me moments — that it’s easy to forget that Owens is in the fourth quarter of his career as an elite NFL receiver. That Owens’ streak of games with a catch was snapped at 185 — two days after being profiled as the cover subject for a certain national newspaper — was a reminder that his skills aren’t what they used to be. As much as his departure from Dallas might have been fueled by chemistry issues, it is also apparent that Owens doesn’t separate as easily from coverage and drops way more passes than he did when he burned up the NFL a few years ago as arguably the game’s most complete receiver.
Interestingly, it was a USA Today feature on Owens that sparked Bayless’ and others in the media’s latest round of pillorying the Bills wideout. for the first time anywhere other than at SOMM, Terrell Owens was, to some degree, placed in context with his past.
That Bayless went out of his way to denigrate Owens and continue to to do so indicates that it is in ESPN’s interest to continue to portray Terrell Owens as a Black buffoon and villain. There are talking heads at the Big Subliminal like Bayless, Mark Schlerreth, Steve Young, and Tom Jackson to name a few, who Terrell Owens will never forgive for the statements they made during his football-playing career. The network knows Owens will never bec ome an ESPN analyst, as he is too honest for a corporation that makes its hay on a bed of lies, misnomers, half-truths, disinformation, and deception, all to keep America, America; all for more money and the pursuit of more power.
And Terrell Owens is receiving a first-hand lesson in the ESPN way.
Bayless is obsessed with T.O. It’s how he earns money.
My question is why would the beat-writers want to goad T.O. into saying something bad about his teammates? Just so they can write it and cause a controversy, maybe get picked up by ESPN and have their name broadcast as some sort of insider?
If T.O. were rude, abrasive, and threatening to reporters? I could understand it.
But the malicious way that beat reporter over the weekend went after the guy? As a journalist, that’s conduct unbecoming a professional.
Phil -
They just want to make a name for themselves. It could mean that they move on to bigger and better things like a bigger newspaper in a bigger market or start getting their face on television. Reporters know that some players will give them a quote, and in the past, T.O. has been more than willing. Seems to me, he was just irked that T.O. wasn’t going to help his career along.
As for Bayless, as dwil said, that’s what the Big Disney hired him to do. Go after black athletes. It’s football season. T.O. is one of his favorites to go after. He repeatedly went after him last year in Dallas, blaming him for everything that went wrong. To be fair, he’s also called out Tony Romo for being more interested in being a celebrity than a qb and his failings in big games.
Phil
It’s part of the business. The old adage is “If it bleeds it ledes.”
While that’s affirming the fact that violence always dominates news coverage, it also speaks to the idea that controversy is considered news. The media needs conflict in order to frame most issues, or at least to make them “sexy.” So, questions are asked that will stir up conflict. I don’t even blame the reporters completely. Many of them have editors and superiors who want certain questions asked and if they come back to the office without asking those questions, they’ll be the ones in trouble. So, for a regular cat with a mortgage and a family in a dying industry it makes sense to ask the questions your bosses want to hear.
Is Dwil’s new motto ‘Watching Skip Bayless, so you don’t have to’?
Bad enough to watch ESPN, which I have almost completely cut out of my life since an asinine Philip Rivers/Ryan Leaf comparison that was seriously debated two years ago or so, but to actually try and make sense of Bayless?
Even when I did watch ESPN, I changed the channel when that fool spoke.
By the way, unless you’re hopelessly stupid and or mentally handicapped, there is no way you can justify any sort of Rivers/Leaf comparison.
If anything it’d be an Eli/Leaf comparison, since they’re both whiny, inaccurate bitches that ride their D’s to any wins they get.
gmp-
With Skip, seems that way, huh… as you can see, I feel it is vital that we listen to Bayless to understand ESPN. Many people I talk with think Bayless is just a meaningless blowhard. But thinking abut it, would a new outlet of any sort keep a meaningless blowhard around while paying him $1.5 mil without trying him (or her) in different spots in the hope of making them a viable commodity?
Since Bayless has been such a mainstay on Cold Pizza/First Take and is THE man of 1st and 10, and has the ear of so many sports-related figures, his value to the network must be explored.
Big Man-
So true about editors-upper management of newspapers and periodicals dictating the tone of news. And on television, producers fill that role.
With that said, the T.O. hate has taken on a life of its own to the point where reporters go fishing when Owens is around, not only to make news at their superior’s request but to make a name for themselves.
kos-
Sure, Bayless went after Romo for his relationship with what’s her name. Bu think about it. If you’re an athlete what kind of cache do you carry in the world of too many women if the worst nickname you have is “Tony Romeo?” That’s like doing a single man a favor.
Phil-
Agreed.
Dwil, Kos, Big Man:
If you had the SAME guy, day in day out, cracking not-so-good-natured jokes at your expense in the company lunchroom, you’d grin and bear it. We all do, guys. Up. To. A. Point. I think the media goading has gone too far with Owens at this point. Enough already.
Let’s be real here, OK? I realize these guys are making money off of T.O. Selling copy. My questions were more rhetorical than anything. But if you pick and pick and pick at a grown ass man long enough in the real world? You might catch an ass-whoopin’
The members of the fourth-estate want respect from these athletes as a whole? Fuck them. Because they won’t dare speak against one of their own (the guy in Buffalo and Bayless, for example) when they step out of line with an athlete. As I said, it’s not as T.O. has ever gotten physical with a media member or threatened them. The media is not a cat playfully batting a mouse around, but that’s how some of these guys look. And it doesn’t make me respect them at all. Just like an athlete that gets into trouble a lot hurts the image of other athletes? The same is true for media members who are out of line.
Phil
Dawg, I just touched on this on my blog. You would be amazed at how many cats haven’t had a real fight, or haven’t dealt with the sincere threat of violence for a very, VERY long time. I feel like violence deters black men from certain actions. The simple fact that we KNOW that things can go from verbal to physical in a split second means we’re conscious of what we’re saying and doing at all times. That’s how it works in the world that many of us came up in.
You can talk smack, it’s part of life. But, you’d better be prepared to handle things when the person you’re woofing at decides they don’t want to talk anymore. That’s why the black and white reaction to that Blount incident was different. Black cats I talked to we’re like “Should have watched his mouth.” White cats were like “That’s just uncalled for!”
Two different rules of engagement.
Big Man says
“. I feel like violence deters black men from certain actions. The simple fact that we KNOW that things can go from verbal to physical in a split second means we’re conscious of what we’re saying and doing at all times. That’s how it works in the world that many of us came up in.
You can talk smack, it’s part of life. But, you’d better be prepared to handle things when the person you’re woofing at decides they don’t want to talk anymore. That’s why the black and white reaction to that Blount incident was different. Black cats I talked to we’re like “Should have watched his mouth.” White cats were like “That’s just uncalled for!”
Two different rules of engagement.”
Yep, exactly.
Even in my work as an ER doctor, I’ve had a few doctors come at me in a disrespectful manner. They’re shocked as hell when I take them outside and tell them we can throw the fuck down right now. Shit only happens once though. After they figure out MY rules of engagement, they calm the fuck down and treat a brotha with respect.
Phil Deeze, Big Man, KevDog,
Word.
But, I want to take this in a different direction. Hold on now, but I think Bayless is in love with T.O. For real…. Yep, I said it. His long running tirades have the feel of an angry unrequited love. Think about it, there’s no way, short of mental illness (which wouldn’t surprise me), that Bayless could continue hating on somebody who has never done anything to him either directly or indirectly. So, it has to be love, albeit a deranged obssesive one, heh? : )
“So, it has to be love, albeit a deranged obssesive one, heh?”-ks
Must’ve been that promo shot of T.O.’s reality show…you know them cats like Bayless show them tendencies…
O.o
How is it determined exactly which players speak in the post game press conferences? Apparently T.O. did not want to but the league rules are that players must do so….I’m sure there is such a generic rule, but its quite clear that its only the ones the press WANT that are actually required to submit to the post game raking (or glorification if you’re one of the ones they like). Its totally unfair, I dont remember Marvin Harrison ever saying 2 words EVER let alone be at the mic after a Colts game.