Owens signed a one-year contract with the Bengals, and so is, once-again, a free agent. One big reason why he's not on the Bengals roster is he tells it like it is, much to the dislike of former Oakland Raiders exec and NFL Network Analyst Mike Lombardi (pictured). Owens got on NFL Network and said that "Offensively, we really didn’t have the coaching that we really needed to muster what we had on the offensive side of the ball."
T.O.'s correct, and this blogger could write a 60-page book on the Bengals offensive design problems. But Owens mouth has nothing to do with the fact that he produces. But Lombardi, who's not known as a technical, scheme-oriented football executive, has to turn to stupid bad-mouthing of dumb reasons why no NFL organization should sign Owens. Lombardi said that Owens has been "a disruption" in the locker room every where he goes.
There's no question that Owens speaks his mind, but if there weren't so many insecure NFL coaches and front-office people, what T.O. says would be used as material on that teams website to generate monetized web traffic.
Just another one of thousands of examples of how ego damages business potential, but I digress.
Then, Lombardi landed the haymaker of stupid T.O. comments, using Bengals Quarterback Carson Palmer to hide behind in the process.
When NFL Network Analyst Steve Wyche talked about Owens numbers, Lombardi said "Well, talk to Carson Palmer. Owens wasn't always in the right position." While Pro Football Talk reported that there were rumors of Palmer and Owens having "issues," the simple fact that pops up on a Google search for "Carson Palmer and Terrell Owens" is that Palmer wanted the Bengals to sign him, and came away impressed after a workout with him.
Thus, it's more than likely Lombardi got that information second-hand rather than talking with Palmer himself. If so, Lombardi needs to retract his statement because when Lombardi says "You talk to Carson Palmer," he's essentially saying that Palmer was dissing Owens. Better back that one up.
If Lombardi was thinking instead of talking, he would have remembered that 2010 was Owens first year in the Bengals offense, which means Terrell had to learn a new system. Thus, it's expected that Owens may have been "out of position" on some plays. But to absorb all that new information and still have the receiving performance Owens turned in last year, was just incredible.
It also points to how stupid and biased Lombardi's NFL Network comments were. Moreover, Lombard made his comments with such force and assertion, it seemed he has a bias against Owens. If so, he should reveal just what the issue is, but be prepared to be roundly criticized for it.
A smart NFL executive should be concerned with one word: production. The Bengals one-dimentional passing game and a 15th-ranked defense (down 10-spots from 5th ranked in 2009) was the problem in 2010. Indeed, that alone was the difference between 4 and 12 in 2010 and the playoffs in 2009.
The Bengals poor season wasn't T.O.'s fault. But once again, Terrell's the victim of bad organizational timing and a former NFL exec who's anti-Owens bias is so obvious he gets on NFL Network, talks before he thinks, and wrongly quotes Owens' teammates.
