Owens Earns Respect the Hard Way

Even in the moment of his greatest personal triumph, even as teammate and opponent alike showered praise on him after Super Bowl XXXIX, even after finishing as his team’s leading receiver despite playing with two screws and a plate in his injured right ankle, Terrell Owens was defiant.

“In this situation, other people like [Green Bay Packer quarterback] Brett Favre, they would have called him a warrior,” Owens said. “For me, they said I was selfish. If I’m selfish, I’m selfish because I want my team to win. The media made it a situation to where they thought I was grandstanding.”

His Philadelphia Eagles did not win Sunday night, losing to the New England Patriots, 24-21, at Alltel Stadium. But Owens finally won the kind of respect he never could when he was getting as much attention for his end zone celebrations as he was for the catches that put him there.

That was perceived by some as selfish. But nobody used that word after Owens caught nine passes Sunday for 122 yards, including a 36-yarder.

“To gut it out the way he did was really something,” Philadelphia tight end L.J. Smith said. “He had to be hurting, but he didn’t show it. I respect him so much more now. He gave everything he had when he wasn’t supposed to play.”

That was the general opinion six weeks ago when Owens sprained his ankle and broke his leg against the Dallas Cowboys. The Eagles’ medical staff cast serious doubt on Owens’ ability to return by Super Sunday.

“I give [the doctors] all the respect in the world,” Owens said. “You guys believed what they said, that I couldn’t play. Nobody in this room [the postgame interview area] thought that I could play. Nobody but me. The power of prayer and the power of faith carried me all the way.”

When the Eagles began practicing in Jacksonville on Super Bowl week, with Owens taking a larger and larger role as the days wore on, it became apparent that he was indeed going to play.

But how much? Would he merely be a decoy? Would he make only a token appearance, a la Willis Reed, who limped out on the court in the seventh game of the 1970 NBA Finals, inspiring his New York Knicks to beat the Lakers?

Obviously anxious to show the Patriots that Owens would be more than a decoy, that they couldn’t ignore him on defense, the Eagles went to Owens on their first two plays from scrimmage. The first was an incomplete pass. The second, at the right sideline, went for a seven-yard completion.

“He was no decoy,” Philadelphia center Hank Fraley said. “He had a good game. We knew he would play. The question was, would he hold up?”

If playing a full game, drawing the defense away from the Eagles’ other offensive options and catching a more than respectable number of passes means holding up, Owens certainly did that. He caught only two fewer passes for 11 fewer yards that the Patriots’ Deion Branch, and Branch was the named the game’s most valuable player.

“I played as many plays as the coach called for me,” Owens said. “There wasn’t anything I did on the field that should be a surprise.”

Still, he clearly was not the electrifying force on the field he had been in other games. He appeared to slip on one catch. And even when he caught the ball in full stride, his trademark burst of speed was absent.

“You could definitely tell that T.O. was still kind of hurting,” Philadelphia offensive tackle Jon Runyan said. “There were a couple of plays there that, if he was healthy, he would have broken away and gone about 80 yards.”

When fireworks began exploding over Alltel Stadium, signaling the end of the game, Owens and New England defensive back Troy Brown talked briefly.

“He had said that if I came out and played, that he would bow down to me,” Owens said. “I just told him congratulations and that was it.”

In the locker room, Owens, who said he felt no pain in the game, dressed, slipped his right shoe on without any obvious difficulty, bid reporters goodbye and disappeared into the night.

As he left, he wasn’t even limping.