Owens and Cowboys on Same Page

No matter what Terrell Owens does for the Dallas Cowboys this season, he’s already been worth every penny.

Look at the jump in ticket sales.

Check out how many juicy TV time slots the Cowboys have this season.

Better yet, count up all the No. 81 jerseys the club has sold.

The excitement generated by “the player,” as Coach Bill Parcells usually refers to Owens, is amazing. Even Deion Sanders didn’t generate the buzz T.O. has, and Prime Time arrived back when the Cowboys were winning Super Bowls.

Perhaps that’s the connection: Dallas hasn’t won a playoff game in 10 years, leaving fans -- and team owner Jerry Jones -- so demoralized that they’ve embraced the guy who until a few months ago was probably their most-despised foe.

“I’m very fortunate for the opportunity that the Cowboys have given me,” said Owens, who will make his Dallas debut Sunday in Jacksonville.

“This is a team that I felt when I looked at the market that’s been kind of on the edge of making the playoffs,” he said. “I think with the addition of myself and a couple of guys on the team, we can get ourselves where we need to be.”

The combination of this player on this team with this coach has unleashed all kinds of hope and hype. Jones knows it too, but he’s not bragging.

Not yet, at least.

See, Jones insists he signed Owens strictly to help the Cowboys win. And it’s not just rhetoric.

As a former oil wildcatter, the only thing Jones likes more than winning is getting to say “I told you so” after winning. He’s already gotten that thrill once in the NFL, when he and Jimmy Johnson became back-to-back champions only a few years after being branded fools for the way they were rebuilding “America’s Team.” He believes this gambit will let him say it again.

“When we won those Super Bowls, it was fabulous beyond description,” Jones said. “What really made it so entertaining was how critical the sports world had been about what we’d done with the Dallas Cowboys over the years before. It was the contrast, the dynamics, that made it so great.”

So when Owens became available, Jones didn’t hold a grudge against the receiver for having celebrated two touchdowns on the team’s midfield logo during a game six years ago. “I was thinking about the touchdowns before he went to the star,” Jones said.

Owens’ ability is seldom an issue. When happy and healthy, he’s probably the best receiver going.

He combines the reliable hands of a possession receiver such as Keyshawn Johnson, his predecessor in Dallas, with the big-play ability of fellow wideout Terry Glenn. Best of all, he can do both on one play, taking a short pass and turning it into a long touchdown.

Look back to his last regular-season game. Owens caught three passes for 154 yards, including a 91-yard touchdown that started as a three-yard pass to the sideline, then turned into the longest play of his career after he juked past Champ Bailey, one of the NFL’s top cornerbacks.

But the reason Owens hasn’t played since that day in Denver -- way back on Oct. 30 -- underscores why no matter how great he performs, his talent is rarely the first thing people talk about.

Fed up with gripes over his contract, squabbles with Donovan McNabb and other indiscretions, the Philadelphia Eagles dumped Owens before the next game. They even got lawyers involved to make sure he never returned.

Although team officials knew what they were getting into when they acquired him in 2004, and despite Owens’ almost leading them to their first Super Bowl title in February 2005, the breakup was so harsh that Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie was still filled with spite this summer.

“Nobody should be able to be as disruptive and really cut the energy of the team down,” Lurie said.

Philadelphia released Owens in March. Four days later, he signed a three-year, $25-million deal with Dallas. He got a $5-million signing bonus and another $5 million in salary for this season -- more money in 2006 than he would’ve gotten under his deal with the Eagles.

His first six months with the Cowboys already have had the ups and downs that, at this point, should be expected.

He was excused from most of the team’s off-season training and released his second autobiography shortly before training camp. Less than a week into practices, he had a hamstring injury that looked like no big deal on an MRI, yet bothered him enough to fly in specialists.

After mocking his time on the stationary bike by dressing up as a member of Lance Armstrong’s cycling team (he couldn’t find a yellow jersey), Owens was back on the field the following week, only to go down again soon after. He blamed coaches for pushing him too hard.

Back in Dallas, Owens was fined $9,500 for being late to work -- “I overslept,” he explained -- but healed in time to play in the preseason finale. He’s practiced all this week and, coincidence or not, things seem to be smoothing out just in time for the opener.

“Everybody is on the same page at this point,” Owens said Wednesday.

Owens surely realizes this is his last chance to avoid being permanently labeled “more trouble than he’s worth.” At 65, Parcells is far more interested in winning games than personality clashes. And Jones is ready to play peacemaker, if necessary, because he so desperately wants this to work.

“I think we’re in a situation where we kind of need each other,” Owens said.

Parcells has mostly steered clear of Owens, a cautious approach indicating he’d rather say nothing than the wrong thing.

“I’ve been watching the guy,” Parcells said. “I get it.”

Owens, however, actually wants a relationship with Parcells. He wants the mind games, a taunting nickname and whatever other verbal jabs Parcells uses to get the most out of his players.

“I’ve always kind of, in a strange way, wanted a coach like Parcells, somebody that can really in a sense get to know me and then understand me and what makes me go,” Owens said. “I think in due time, Bill and I, we will get better with our relationship.”

He’s doing just fine with his teammates.

When the team flew to California for the start of training camp, Owens was already there, but he went to a naval base to greet everyone when they landed. He threw a barbecue for teammates on their first off day and spent plenty of time giving pointers to undrafted rookie receiver Sam Hurd, who ended up making the team.

“Everybody is on board with T.O. being here and I’m glad to see that,” said Greg Ellis, the team’s longest-tenured player. “He’s been a good fit for the Dallas Cowboys. I think it’s going to be a wonderful thing.”

“He’s been very professional,” said quarterback Drew Bledsoe, whose relationship with Owens is the most pivotal.

Fans warmed to Owens even more quickly, with many -- such as Steve Calderon of Long Beach -- zooming across the line from hate to love before the ink on the contract was dry.

Only weeks before, Calderon had Owens in mind when he ordered a set of license plates with a Cowboys twist: “RSPCTD(star),” which translated to “respect the star.”

Then Owens signed with Dallas and said “I will embrace the star.” It was all Calderon needed to hear.

“I’ve accepted his apology. He’s one of us now,” said Calderon, who was at training camp wearing a white No. 81 jersey and carrying a blue one, hoping to get both -- and a license plate -- signed by Owens.

Calderon was among 5,500 people at Owens’ first training camp workout in Oxnard. It was the largest crowd in the team’s four years in Oxnard, and the start of strong turnouts for every session, with folks lining a chain-link fence and chanting “T-O! T-O!” in hopes of getting all sorts of things autographed.

One man spent $300 on a 3-foot tall Owens bobblehead, later bragging that he’d bought “the only one in the fan shop” -- not realizing it also was the only one the team made. Owens got such a kick out of the wooden likeness that after signing it, he thwacked the head and nodded along.

Scenes like that are typical of T.O.’s playful side, the part that craves look-at-me stunts to try drawing a laugh -- from pulling a Sharpie out of his sock to borrowing a cheerleader’s pompoms to taking part in a gimmicky nude scene with a sultry actress for a pregame show.

Owens usually is having fun. It just doesn’t always come across that way.

Like when he showed up to Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks wearing a Shaquille O’Neal jersey and a Mavs hat. The ensemble raised a fuss locally, so for Game 2 Owens ordered a customized Mavericks jersey: No. 81, of course, with “T.O.” on the nameplate.

Owens was soon forgiven for his fashion faux pas. At his preseason debut, the full-throated boos he used to get at Texas Stadium gave way to a standing ovation, the ultimate proof he is one of the ‘Boys now.

How long it lasts remains to be seen.

“I know the things that I do from here on out, it probably will leave a mark,” Owens said, “whether it’s good or bad.”