Terrell Owens was an NFL success story overshadowed by distractions

Viewed entirely through the prism of on-field accomplishments, Terrell Owens’ career resides as one of the NFL’s greatest success stories.

Not even a varsity starter until his senior year of high school in Alexander City, Ala., Owens morphed from a Division I-FCS Tennessee-Chattanooga recruit — on a partial scholarship — to the heir apparent to the NFL’s wide receiver kingpin.

Only Jerry Rice's total sits ahead of Owens' on the all-time NFL receiving yardage list, with the one-time 49ers third-round draft choice managing to maintain his perch as an elite NFL wide receiver into his mid-30s. And even at age 37 with the 2010 Bengals, Owens amassed nearly 1,000 yards and added nine final touchdowns to his NFL resume.

Owens-Randy Moss was a debate during these superstars' primes, and T.O. finished his career with five first-team All-Pro honors compared to Moss’ four. For the criticisms levied at Moss for being a boundary wide receiver (albeit the best ever at that part of the game) disinterested with refinements inside the hash marks, Owens (perhaps this position’s premier physicality dynamo) eviscerated defenders across the gridiron.

Terrell Owens is unquestionably a top-10 all-time wideout and, if only his work between whistles mattered, a player who deserved the rare first-ballot Hall of Fame entrance this position’s seen only six times.

But no modern NFL player — and perhaps no Hall of Fame-caliber performer in league history — made it harder to judge him solely on talent. In an era when “diva” entered the NFL vernacular, Owens established an unassailable legacy. 

Off-gridiron issues are not part of Hall of Fame selection discussions, as several players with checkered legal pasts are enshrined in Canton. But no one blurred the line here like Owens.

Critics of T.O.’s three-year induction wait can question why Moss became the sixth first-ballot wide receiver enshrinee, despite an embarrassing two-year Raiders stay rife with suboptimal effort (one of the knocks on the freakish deep threat), while Owens missed the cut for two years. 

The sticking point re: Owens for many voters is valid, however. Regardless of how productive he was in a 15-year career, his antics wore down several teams, leading to hotly debated sessions among Hall voters in 2016 and ’17.

Two such exits warrant special mention, since those teams fell off Super Bowl contention pedestals rapidly as Owens’ shtick ran wild.

Owens steered his way to the Eagles, managing to alienate a Ravens team he never played for, and provided elite aerial work. Buoyed by Owens’ dominance, the 2004 Eagles were better than the three Philadelphia predecessors that lost in NFC championship games. Owens played on a not fully healed broken leg to catch nine passes for 122 yards in a Super Bowl XXXIX loss.

The events of an unbelievable 2005 — Owens holding out one year into a seven-year, $46 million contract, a shouting match with Andy Reid, the driveway sit-ups, multiple public criticism salvos aimed at Donovan McNabb barely a year after saying they meshed together like “peanut butter and jelly,” fuming the Eagles didn’t appropriately acknowledge his 100th career touchdown reception — led to Reid taking the extraordinary step to suspend Owens and, once that ended, deactivate him the rest of the way.

With Moss languishing in Oakland that season and Owens coming off that dominant ’04 campaign, the latter had a chance to claim sole possession of the best-receiver-alive throne. (He averaged a career-best 109 yards per game in his final seven Eagles contests.) But the second half of the ’05 season saw said receiver banished from playing for a defending NFC champion. After four straight NFC East titles, Philadelphia went 6-10 in 2005.

Owens signed two Cowboys contracts in the next three years and earned his final first-team All-Pro honor with a 1,355-yard, 15-touchdown 2007 season — when Dallas secured the NFC’s top seed for the first time since its 1995 Super Bowl run. The Cowboys extended Owens for four years and $34M in 2008 and received a third 1,000-yard season from their No. 1 wideout that year. They cut him in 2009. Jerry Jones said he followed the advice of “many, many” people in releasing Owens one year into his second Cowboy contract, doing so despite that move costing the franchise $9M in dead money. 

Behind-the-scenes issues involving T.O. conflicts with key Cowboys personnel led to the organization’s decision to move on from the volatile pass-catcher, who subsequently produced in obscurity with the Bills and Bengals.

These problems occurred in too many places, with 49ers coaches also being on the other end of public T.O. barbs, for Owens not to be viewed as the troublesome variable. But to some degree, it’s arguable he was worth the tumult tornadoes he caused. 

The 49ers selected J.J. Stokes at No. 10 overall in 1995, but the No. 89 pick in '96 instead supplanted Rice as the 49ers’ go-to player. Owens snared one of the NFL’s signature game-winning touchdowns in a wild-card victory over the Packers and two years later caught a then-NFL-record 20 passes in Rice’s San Francisco finale. That 2000 season began an Owens run of three straight first-team All-Pro distinctions. He scored 14 touchdowns in 14 games with the ’04 Eagles and caught four TD passes — all of the Cowboys’ non-PAT points — in a 2007 win over the Redskins. (Fittingly, Moss snared four TDs later that night.)

He thrived in chaotic atmospheres. It’s hard to argue Owens could have done much more in his career; his 153 receiving TDs rank third behind Rice (197) and Moss (156).

His refusal to attend the Hall of Fame induction ceremony represents another chapter in the T.O. saga and one that doesn’t deviate too much from Owens' M.O. during his career. But he’s obviously not the first wideout to have to wait for enshrinement.

Art Monk retired as the NFL’s career reception leader but endured an eight-year wait. Cris Carter waited six. Marvin Harrison, who joined Moss on the 2000s’ All-Decade team ahead of Owens, was voted in on his third ballot year. 

This happens. Although Owens failing to make it to the selection process' final-10 stage in 2016 or ’17 is a red flag, exhausting his stay with three teams — two of those franchises cutting bait in the heart of his prime — badly damaged the receiver's reputation.

“Great player, bad teammate” will be Owens’ legacy (along with his end-zone routines; he shredded his contemporaries in originality there.) His monstrous production ultimately outweighed this, with the polarizing superstar being inducted quicker than almost every peer.

Antics throughout the 2000s overshadowed Owens’ remarkable ascent story.

Because if these repeated mercurial tendencies didn’t surface — basically, if Owens would have conducted himself like he mostly did before the Dallas star incident in 2000 — he would be remembered for a climb out of obscurity into NFL lore rather than as the ultimate distraction.