Terrell Owens at 37. Not huge, not vascular, not schmoetastic. A real athlete.
What if Terrell Owens held a workout and nobody showed up?
The job-seeking 37-year-old wide receiver actually learns the answer to that question, staging a workout attended by zero (as in 0) NFL scouts. He's still hopeful of catching on with a team, though.
By Broderick Turner
On a cold, gray Tuesday morning, unemployed wide receiver Terrell Owens stepped onto a high school football field in an attempt to show the NFL that he has overcome a knee injury and is ready to play a 16th season.
The only problem was that on this day the number of reporters (eight) outnumbered the NFL scouts (zero) watching Owens work out for about an hour at Calabasas High.
Owens, 37, said he has fully recovered from a torn anterior cruciate ligament he suffered in early April. The six-time Pro Bowl player also maintained that he wasn't bothered that there weren't any NFL scouts on hand to watch his workout.
"Why would I be upset?" Owens said. "Like I said, I'm a realist. Everybody knows that I'm honest. So, it doesn't bother me that nobody is here. But that doesn't mean nobody is interested."
For those who might be interested in Owens, the NFL Network and ESPN were there to record things.
Owens went through a series of drills and then took off his shirt and ran some passing routes for 25 minutes. He caught passes from Casey Hansen, a former quarterback at Norfolk State andin the Arena Football League.
Drew Rosenhaus, Owens' agent, said he'll send tapes of his client's workout to all 32 NFL teams and expects to attract some interest in the coming weeks.
"I feel like I want to go to a team that's a contender and obviously complete for a championship," Owens said. "I think there are some teams, if you look around the league, you can't say that I can't play on any of those teams."
Owens has played for five NFL teams. Last season he caught 72 passes for 983 yards and nine touchdowns for the Cincinnati Bengals.
He is known to be a controversial figure and a dominant personality in a locker room.
"I can only go by what I've done in the last two years," Owens said. "If everybody wants to be a history major and really go by what happened in the past, that's their loss. I think I've tried to rebuild and do some things different the last two years. When I was in Buffalo [in 2009], you didn't hear a peep. When I was in Cincinnati, you didn't hear much. So other than that, that's all I can do is move forward."
When asked how his knee felt, Owens was quick to answer.
"How did it look?" he asked. "I think if I wasn't feeling well, then it would have showed out there on the field. So, I feel good."
One of those watching Owens' workout was Jerry Rice, his former San Francisco 49ers teammate who now works for ESPN.
In his NFL career Owens ranks second all time, behind Rice, in yards receiving, and Owens and Randy Moss both have 153 receiving touchdowns, also second all time behind Rice.
