T.O. and ESPN's overwhelming underwhelment

Before I get into this, let me start by apologizing in advance to any Buffalo Bills fans that may happen to read this. What I'm about to say isn't meant to trash your team (or your city if you happen to live there) in any way.

So I'm watching ESPN yesterday, and I noticed that the SportsCenter anchors had that particular gleam in their eye that they only get when a certain individual does/says something newsworthy (as far as they're concerned, anyway). This individual is one Terrell Owens. Seeing as how it was such an exceptionally slow sports day, what with March Madness upon us and the beginning of the World Baseball Classic,  not to mention Lebron and D. Wade facing off again (I'm yawning just typing this), I guess they needed to go to their fail-safe ratings stimulus package, going so far as to have one of the anchors begin the show eating popcorn. One can only assume that the general consensus in Bristol was "T.O. news in March?!? America needs this story!!! I don't care what it's about! Just get all our talking heads prepped! Gogogogogo!". That is, until they realized what the story was.

There had been much speculation as to where young Owens would end up gainfully employed, and thanks to the efforts to international super agent and professional worm Drew Rosenhaus, that speculation is now over. Personally, I've been burdened with stress and worry for the past two days over where this terrible, terrible human being will be getting his next multi-million dollar contract. 

Wait. He signed where? 

The Buffalo...Bills? 

Well, that was...anticlimactic. 

Whatever happened to all the professional sports experts saying that Oakland or San Francisco were both potential 100% locks? What about the talks of him and Randy Moss teaming up on the Patriots? Just what happened to all the smexiness of this story?

Okay, I'll admit, that first batch of underwhelment didn't go down smooth. But let's shift focus on the lower, more occupied area of this glass of meh. After over a decade of mediocrity, the Buffalo Bills are back on the minds of the sports world! Now, they're only one step away from returning to those glory days when they won all those Super Bo...oh...wait...whoops. Sorry about that, folks. Somtimes I got so nostalgic, I start remembering history wrong. But that happens to everyone, right? But enough digressing. In all seriousness, this will make the Buffalo Bills a better team immediately, even if T.O. continues to use that coat of WD-40/Crisco amalgam for scotch guard on his gloves (would it have been simpler to say I Can't Believe it's Not Butter fingers instead?). His mere presence on the field should open up the run game, and stop the bombardment of double teams Lee Evans faced every single Sunday. I wouldn't put them in the playoffs just yet, however. Not until Trent Edwards can prove he can play an entire season without missing significant time under center. But that kind of talk is best left for September. What I really wanted to focus on was the reactions of both ESPN, and T.O. himself.

During the evening run of SportsCenter last night, they ran two significant segments (if my memory serves correctly) about the signing of T.O., what lead up to it, and the potential results/ramifications. However, as I'm listening to what ESPN's talking heads had to say on the matter, I kept picking up on this underlying tone of sulkiness for some reason. In my opinion, it seems the Sports Leader isn't exactly esctatic about small market Buffalo being the new home of their go-to fall guy. Especially after leaving the Dallas Guiding Lights (I have no clue if that soap opera is still on, and Dallas General Hospitals just sounds absurd), which helped produce a significant amount of ESPN's off the field stories for the better part of last year. But now, with no Ed Werner and crack team of spies, er, investigative reporters in place, where will they get all of their exclusives, such as when T.O. blows up on a staff member for bringing him cotto salami instead of smoked ham on his sandwich? America requests, nay, demands this information immediately! We don't care about silly things such as division record deadlocks, or breakout young talent. We want T.O., and lots of him. I think ESPN is feeling the pressure of giving us our supposed fix, not to mention actually making it interesting.

I wasn't fortunate enough to see T.O.'s press conference in full, but I watched the "highlights" several times, and let me tell you, it was a stark contrast to the one he had when he signed with the Cowboys. While Terrell was grinning from ear to ear three years ago (all while briefly stimulating the sales of popcorn), this was a much more subdued Owens we saw on Saturday. He seemed a bit unimpressed with Buffalo, and for the most part, treated the affair as though he was just going through the motions. Not that usual charisma and charm we see and hear from T.O. when he's in front of the camera. Well, maybe charm isn't the right word. I think swagger would be better fitting. Anyway, his slimebucket agent slithered on stage for his usual 2 cents he feels obligated to give during his client's press time (go figure), basically confirming that there weren't as many teams clamoring for Owens as he initially made it out to be. It just added to the already prominent blandness of this announcement. T.O. wasn't excited, ESPN tried their best to spin it into something interesting, and everyone else is left asking "Buffalo? Really?"

Here's what I think is the current state of affairs. T.O. liked playing for Dallas. I mean REALLY liked it. The most popular team in the league. Great owner. Great city. Playoff contender (when he arrived, anyway). Gigantic media spotlight. It was the best source of nourishment for the unquenchable thirst that is his ego. Plus he was getting paid, which to me, seems more important to Wormsenhaus than T.O. It seems that, besides staying in Big D,  T.O. would have preferred going to the Bay Area or even Foxboro, just so he wouldn't miss the warm, self-centered glow of the spotlight he so desires. But when you have a greedy assbag for an agent, and there's not a lot of options, you end up with the team that shows him..I mean, you the money. I get the feeling that Rosehaus sold signing with the Bills to T.O. like this:

"Look, you catch 10 or 12 touchdowns this year, make the Pro Bowl, and just stay on your bast behavior like you always do when you first sign with a team. When next year rolls around, we can get you on a team that you actually want to play for. Deal?"

Something in my gut is telling me that, unlike his previous stints with other teams, T.O. won't play nice in his first year. I think he starts grumbling the minute he realizes that there isn't much going on in Buffalo except football, and the cold, bitter winds of reality that the spotlight shielded him from begin to stiffen those 35 year old bones of his. He'll realize he's not getting any younger, wants to cement his legacy as the greatest wide reciever ever. He knows he can't do that without at least one Super Bowl ring. The grumblings get louder, and eventually he tries to force Buffalo's hand into releasing him from his contract.

That is, unless the Bills go 12-4, make the playoffs, and get him 120 catches in the process (because believe me, from what I heard yesterday, the CATCHES are way more important that the playoffs or anything else).