DallasCowboys.com Columnist
Feb. 2, 2005, 5:18 p.m. (CST)
a soft spot for his admiral.
Staubach played.
The result of the game is immaterial (which is another way of saying I don't remember). But there was a lesson to be learned: in the heat of battle, the most unselfish team leader is capable of judgment that could be construed as selfish by an outsider.
And that wasn't the Super Bowl.
So maybe Owens, for all his braggadocio, is simply that competitive. Maybe he honestly believes that half of him can help the team, and maybe he's right.
If Owens knew what thousands of older players who never got to Super Bowls, or waited decades for one, we could ascribe his motives to the most understandable thinking: you may never get here again. How could you NOT do everything imaginable to play in one if you got the chance?
What's happening to the Patriots is an aberration, this playing three in four years. A young broadcaster learned that lesson, too, early on.
In my second year broadcasting Cowboys games, 1977, the team went to the Super Bowl. They went again in '78, and I thought I had a handle on the job. Team goes to training camp in July, and the season ends in February.
The next Super Bowl the Cowboys attended was 14 years later.
Personally, I doubt that Terrell Owens is claiming today he will definitely play Sunday because he has such great perspective that he knows he may never get this chance again. It seems more likely that he just wants to be on the stage.
But we only know the side of Terrell Owens we know. If I were Andy Reid, I wouldn't play him if he weren't truly able to contribute to winning. But that's me. I sure know why Owens wants to play, even if he only thinks he does.
