The T.O. show -- good to his last drop?
10/23/06 11:44 PM
By ED BARK
Oh how ESPN would love to pencil in the T.O. Cowboys for each and every episode of Monday Night Football. Episode as in soap opera. As his world turns.
Only with T.O. can a network sports analyst feel free to invoke Satan. "The devil comes in many forms," Tony Kornheiser told America in his opening soliloquy on what Terrell Owens can bring to a team. "Jerry Jones knew that and bit from the apple anyway."
Last week, though, T.O. caught three touchdowns against the lowly Houston Texans. Duly noted, said Kornheiser. "Sometimes in good faith the devil will deliver before he claims your soul. Don't say you weren't warned."
And so it went, with a delectable side dish of starting quarterback Drew Bledsoe giving way to backup Tony Romo at the start of the second half. But no matter who ran the team, T.O. still ran the show. ESPN never missed a chance to elevate him above whatever otherwise was a pivotal game for Eastern Conference supremacy. To that end we were treated to a video montage of coach Bill Parcells dodging T.O. questions in what announcer Mike Tirico termed "life under the T.O. shadow."
Kornheiser, who like liver is an acquired taste, then savored "the utter dripping condescension that comes out of his (Parcells') mouth" when T.O. is the topic.
Later in the game, with Bledsoe still in it, Kornheiser noted that "T.O. is happy now because the passes are coming to him. That's what he wants on every pass."
But with Romo slinging 'em, a wide open T.O. muffed a key fourth down toss. It ended a crucial Cowboys drive and led to another New York Giants score. T.O. followed that up by falling down on a pass route. But the "devil" later delivered by snaring a Romo bullet in the end zone.
"Good thing he didn't drop that one," Kornheiser hissed.
"Always a show with T.O.," Tirico chipped in before Romo added a two-point conversion with a quarterback draw. That made it 26-15 amid thunderous cheers for the new QB. This of course meant it was time to talk about T.O. again.
"He has held the NFL hostage for three or four years now," Kornheiser observed. Therefore Parcells "still isn't sure" about him.
Tirico happily piled on after mockingly describing T.O. as "striding purposefully back onto the field."
"He's got a quarterback who likes him," he said. "Will he feed the T.O. monster? We'll be back."
Viewers also were treated to an "Odd Couple" montage. Oscar & Felix. Muhammad Ali & Howard Cosell. George Steinbrenner & Billy Martin. Shaq & Kobe. Bill & T.O.
Amazingly, verbose Joe Theismann mostly kept his mouth shut on all things T.O. Instead he debated the merits of Romo replacing Bledsoe, and whether it would stick. He thinks it will.
ESPN carried T.O.'s post-game press conference in its entirety, of course. "We're stinkin' it up in every phase of the game," he volunteered.
No one could be heard asking him about his own stinkin' contribution. Dropping that big 4th down pass from Romo sucked the momentum from his team and breathed it back into the Giants, who quickly scored another TD.
After T.O. had finished, ESPN displayed a telling graphic. In bold print, it said, Owens -- 6 catches, 98 yards. The adjoining smaller print noted, "Giants def. Cowboys 36-22."
That's called having your priorities straight.