With Owens, Naturally, There’s a Catch

Terrell Owens claims he’s a changed man, wiser now after months of introspection.

The 49ers, who desperately want the Pro Bowl receiver to be a productive part of their offense, are ready to take him at his word.

“He’s trying, he really is,” Coach Steve Mariucci said Thursday. “Things are pretty damn good right now.”

But Owens is prone to dramatic mood swings, so it’s unclear how long the good feelings will linger. On the first day of training camp, for instance, he told reporters he was ready to be a vocal leader, a stable fixture in the locker room, a cool-headed pro to whom rookies could turn.

A day later, in a USA Today feature, Owens said of his teammates: “It’s sad to say, but there are not a whole lot of guys who I can say really are my friends.”

He went on to say how the 49ers have “a lot of fake people” and “a lot of two-faced people. And that goes from the top down.”

Had that come from another star player, it might have caused more of a stir. Because Owens said it, though, it was just another bombastic blip and barely caused a ripple. Owens doesn’t have many friends on the team and has alienated a lot of players.

Regardless of how he’s viewed, Owens insists it doesn’t affect his game.

“I’m not going to let something somebody says or somebody thinks about me distract me from what I do on the field,” he said. “No matter what happens or whatever comes up, I’m still able to go out on that field and perform.”

That said, he’s still determined to reinvent himself. The old Owens, the one who did a celebration dance on the midfield star at Texas Stadium? He’s history. Gone, too, is the Owens who angrily sulked in front of his locker after catching three passes in a loss to St. Louis last season, and the one who angrily asked the 49ers to put him on the expansion-draft list so he might begin anew in another city.

The 49ers refused to do that, of course, because Owens is one of the best playmakers in football, a receiver every bit as dangerous as Minnesota’s Randy Moss. Owens led the league with 16 touchdown receptions last season, and his play this summer has been at the same level, if not higher.

But talent has never been a problem for Owens. His attitude and mood swings are what have gotten him into trouble. After the 49ers lost in overtime at Chicago last season--a game decided when Mike Brown grabbed a deflection off Owens’ hands and returned it 33 yards for a touchdown--Owens essentially accused Mariucci of rolling over. He said Mariucci didn’t want to run up the score on his buddy, Chicago Coach Dick Jauron, and therefore failed to put the game out of reach.

Mariucci responded by calling the accusation “utterly ridiculous” and “completely void of any deep thought.” A divide had already been forming between player and coach, and now the chasm was even wider.

The feud festered. After a loss to St. Louis in December, Owens sat in a chair in front of his locker and sulked, too angry to speak to teammates, let alone reporters. And smoke was streaming from his ears after the 49ers lost to Green Bay in the first round of the playoffs, a game in which he had four catches and felt frozen out of the offense.

“It got to a point where I was basically fed up,” said Owens, who returned home to Atlanta after the season. “I wanted out. It got all the way back here, and people in the Bay Area reported about it. It was just bad.”

Things didn’t improve until April, when Mariucci flew to Atlanta and met Owens and his agent in an airport hotel. The sides talked for hours and ironed out their differences.

“I felt it was necessary, and it was worth doing,” Mariucci said. “We had a productive discussion. We both got things off our chest that we’ve been carrying for too long. We needed that.”

The two are friendlier with each other now. They chat on the practice field--something that hardly ever happened last season--and Mariucci recently asked Owens to be part of his “Dirty Dozen,” an advisory board of players.

Owens has even made himself more accessible to reporters this summer. But Thursday, a writer who regularly covers the team approached him at his locker hoping to get a comment about a rookie cornerback. The kinder, gentler Owens barely looked his way, shooing him away with a flick of his wrist. Change takes time.