T.O. With Nowhere To Go: Will Any Team Give Terrell Owens a Shot?

"They are yellow jackets numbers, yet here you are."

Yes, Terrell Owns, here you are.

As Rich Eisen said so bluntly on last week's NFL Total Access, here you are, still sitting without a team to call your own, a 36-year-old future Hall of Famer still jobless in June.

Seemingly for the first time in his career, Terrell Owens remains a silent figure removed from the spotlight and the media glare he was so accustomed to. Once a fixture on magazine covers and a headliner on evening SportsCenters, No. 81 now sits alone and unwanted.

If you were to believe Owens and agent Drew Rosenhuaus, there have been multiple franchises showing routine interest for the receiver's services, but the way things look right now, that sounds like the usual offseason agent puffery.

After finishing off his short stop in Buffalo with the lowest full season numbers of his career since his rookie year, Owens has since been playing the waiting game.

Sitting and waiting for a team to give him a shot.

When you start to dissect the reasons why he hasn't been offered, you can come up with an extensive list of potential reasons that Owens has yet to garner much interest.

If you were to ask Terrell, he'll tell you it's his overblown character concerns, which considering his history, probably would be a good place to start.

Owens stated during his Total Access appearance that if you asked any of his past teammates about him, they would all tell you the same thing: he's an ideal teammate. He even noted a recent interview with Ryan Fitzpatrick where the Bills QB talked about how great of a player and teammate Owens was during his time in Buffalo.

However, look back at some of his antics and failed relationships throughout his career and it would shed some doubt on that notion.

The 49ers, Eagles, and Cowboys; they all have their horror stories to tell. T.O. has certainly had his fair share of prima donnaism during his fourteen seasons in the NFL. No matter how hard he tries to convince everyone otherwise, the proof is well-documented.

If it isn't his character to blame, then the question becomes, can T.O. still play the game at a high level or have his pro bowl type skills greatly diminished?

He still looks in shape, but as we saw in Buffalo last season, he's no longer the supreme threat that had to be accounted for at all times.

Jerry Rice, Terrell's early mentor and the man he's now chasing for the NFL's all time TD record, played into his forties. But over time, Jerry began to accept a diminished role.

In his head, T.O. may think he's still a No. 1 receiver, but in the minds of front offices around the league, they know he fell off sometime in the last few years.

That also could be a reason why T.O.'s saga may not end anytime soon. Owens may think he's still worth No. 1 money, but there just isn't anybody ready to hand it to him at this point in his career.

He doesn't seem very ready to take a big paycut at this point, especially with Mr. Rosenhaus getting a cut of the checks.

So maybe it's his character, maybe it's because he lost a step, maybe it's because he's asking for some serious cash.

Or could it be, that at this point, the bad just outweighs the good?

Maybe, T.O. has hit the spot in his career as a player where he just doesn't have the game to back up the extra curriculars anymore. Maybe his fade routes just aren't crisp enough to make a franchise put up with the spying eyes of Terrell's reality show. Maybe nobody needs the outrageous TD celebrations, or the bitterness his name brings about in the minds of so many NFL fans.

Quite simply, teams may have seen enough to finally say, I'll pass.

So is there a time table for this T.O. ordeal?

No.

T.O. could be signed tomorrow or he could wait it out all summer playing pickup basketball and never once hear his cell phone ring.

Nobody knows for sure what will happen but we shouldn't act shocked like we didn't see this coming from a mile away.

We went through this last year before the Bills, in need of some merchandising money (those No. 81 jerseys turned into some nice sellers, huh?), threw him a life raft hoping he could stay silent and give the offense a spark.

T.O. stayed silent alright, with his character and also with his play. He didn't make much of an impact all season.

That's because somewhere along the way, Owens lost his attitude.

This could've come about because he had Drew Rosenhaus in his ear in the months leading up to last season saying, Hey man, you go to Buffalo for a season, you become a model citizen, and then we cash in during the 2010 offeseason when everyone thinks you're a terrific guy. Really play up the whole, "I'm part of the team thing." High five the fans, or maybe even grab a Bills flag and run around the field with it.

So what happened?

T.O. stopped playing with the edge that made him one of the most feared receivers in the league and his play as a whole fell off dramatically.

He stopped playing with the focused in type attitude that made him one of the most dangerous yet villified players in the NFL over the past decade.

The result? Boldin got paid, Marshall got paid, while T.O. sits at home and watches.

Have we been too unfair on him? Yes, the microscope may be pointed his direction a little too often, but usually it's with good reason. Terrell hasn't been the most rational athlete recently.

Scarfing down a bottle of painkillers in an attempted suicide, doing shirtless sit ups in your driveway, and throwing virtually every QB you've ever played with under the bus isn't ordinary behavior.

Although, that's not to say T.O. doesn't have some good in his life as well.

Have we forgotten about his children's book, Little T Learns To Share?

and what about...

Alright, okay, so there's not much in that department, but he has showed enough throughout his career with his dominating play to at least warrant a few workouts. He's earned that much.

In time, we will find out the explanation for Terrell Owens no longer being in the NFL.

Or maybe we won't.

Terrell Owens might just become the Barry Bonds of the NFL and go from daily headline to distant memory in a short amount of time.

The difference between the two is one (Owens) craved the spotlight while the other (Bonds) did his best to shun it.

We haven't heard a peep from Barry since being unceremoniously nudged out of baseball.

T.O. now finds himself in a similar situation and it will certainly be interesting to see how he reacts to going from the outlaw of the NFL, to actually being the one outlawed from the NFL.