T.O.’s reasoning makes perfect sense, but I think the ship has sailed.
Here are his quotes courtesy of ESPN.
“You look at some of the stuff guys are doing now, domestic violence, players killing players, just everything,” Owens said in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday. “You have so many guys with off-the-field problems, drug issues, alcohol problems and they’re still given second chances and third chances. They’re putting them in rehab and keeping them on the team. I never had those issues. It’s disappointing.”
“They brought up my age when I was 35, 36 and I’m still in just as good shape as I was then,” Owens said. “Jerry (Rice) played until he was 42. At 39, I ran a 4.43 40-yard dash. You look at the number of dropped balls and the way guys are playing now and you can’t honestly say I can’t do better.”
“No doubt there’s not a question that I can still play,” he said. “But perception, media portrayal is so negative. Anytime there’s a rumor that a team is interested in bringing me in, there’s all this media attention, and the negative things they have to say are more than the positives. It’s not about what I can bring to them. It’s about stuff I did 5, 10 years ago.”
Here is the issue, some of that is true, but some of it is T.O.’s own doing. He has the postal worker wife who said she is suicidal.
That is the type of stuff that teams don’t want to deal with. So, while I understand T.O.’s frustration he has to stop blaming everyone else and look in the mirror. The mirror doesn’t lie.