by Jared Smola
Raise your hand if you had Terrell Owens signing with the Bills in your office pool.
Anyone with a hand up can slowly lower it and stop lying to themselves. Buffalo's 90-year old owner Ralph Wilson has never been one to gamble on a high-priced, loose-cannon free-agent like Terrell Owens. Then again, the Bills signed Owens for fairly cheap. And maybe, just maybe, he'll behave in Buffalo (and maybe Wilson isn't suffering from dementia after all).
Owens will get $6.5 million from the Bills in 2009. To put that in perspective, Laveranues Coles just signed a deal with Cincinnati that will pay him $6.6 million in 2009 and a total of $27.5 million over the life of the 4-year deal. Yes, that's the same Laveranues Coles who has topped 1,000 yards just once in the past 5 seasons. T.O. has done that 4 times in the last 5 years (with the lone exception being 2005 when he missed 9 games). So from a strictly football perspective, the Bills got a great deal on a player who fills their need for a big WR to complement Lee Evans.
But Owens will tear QB Trent Edwards to shreds, ruin the locker room, and make HC Dick Jauron wish he'd been fired, right? Maybe, but maybe not. The Bills were very smart by signing Owens to a 1-year deal. As destructive as he has been in San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Dallas, he has always behaved in his 1st year with a new team. And at 35 years old, Owens will likely receive just 1 more contract after this one with the Bills. So for T.O., it's behave in Buffalo or bye-bye football career.
...Which brings us to Owens' football career. The fact that he signed with the Bills (a team that has gone 7-9 in 3 straight seasons with mediocre QB play in a cold, dreary city with uninspiring nightlife) is a sure sign that the NFL has had enough of his antics. You'd think T.O. could have at least caught on with the Vikings or maybe the Titans--2 teams with Super Bowl aspirations. Signing with the Bills is like settling for your high school softball team's clean-up hitter as your prom date after the captain of the cheerleading squad turned you down. That's no fun.
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