Terrell Owens said the news media tried to goal him into a controversy after his catch-less performance on Sunday. The Bills receiver’s streak of 185 consecutive games with a catch ended, and after the game he repeatedly refused to criticize his coaches or teammates and Owens maintained that he was “just going with the plays that are called.” Over the years I’ve always kind of spoken openly about whatever is being asked with my answers, so the last four or five years I’ve kind of noticed that and tried taking some steps to prevent some of those things from happening. “But (Sunday) as you saw, it was obviously … (reporters) took some more than initiative to try to get me to kind of go down the wrong path. I know the last two teams that I’ve been on, I felt like I left those teams prematurely due to media interviews that I’ve done and things kind of taken out of context and they created sort of a media whirlwind in the locker room and things kind of went downhill from there. I’m just trying to do the best job I can do as far as answering the questions and trying to be a better teammate and not try to throw people under the bus.”
Eighty-four million bucks just doesn’t go very far these days, that’s how much guaranteed money the Raiders invested in their last three top draft picks. Sunday that investment reaped these dividends: Three points and several thousand heartfelt boos rained down mostly on quarterback JaMarcus Russell. Near the end of Sunday’s 23-3 loss to the Broncos in the Coliseum, a.k.a. the Blacked-Out Hole, Russell trotted onto the field and the boos were louder than they had been all afternoon, even though most of the fans had fled the premises.
If Ryan wins at all, he may have his own reality show on Comedy Central. His press conferences are that good. Thursday, he joked about his weight — asking how a men’s store calls itself a men’s store if it doesn’t have a size 4X. Also, he said he thought he was in French class while sitting in on an offensive line meeting recently.
And his showstopper was when he imitated coaches who are stiff in front of the cameras while speaking in a monotone and handing out canned answers.
At one point, he stood ramrod straight to make his point and mockingly uttered, “It’s an open competition,” referring to the quarterback battle between Clemens and rookie Mark Sanchez.
The room erupted in laughter because to many of us he sounded a lot like former coach Eric Mangini, but Ryan quickly pointed out, “It’s not a shot at anybody.”
Ryan had nothing but praise for holdout running back Leon Washington Thursday, but he wasn’t as effusive about Washington’s agent, Alvin Keels. Ryan, speaking publicly for the first time about Washington’s decision to boycott organized team activities, admitted that he was taken aback by the move and hinted that Keels was at the root of it. “I was disappointed,” Ryan said of Washington’s absence following an OTA session at Florham Park that was open to the media. “But again, it’s voluntary camp. Things like this come up every year on every team. Again, Leon is a great guy. Who knows where he’s getting advice from. “I don’t know who is telling who anything,” Ryan added. “I can just tell you when Leon is in the building he’s a terrific person and he’s the kind of player you’d love to have on your team.”
Washington’s Agent has been tracking the talks on his twitter page.Here are the tweets.
Everybody needs to relax on this Leon Washington situation. Believe (Rich Cimini), this deal will get done. Prediction, Washington signs a long-term extension, averaging $4.5 million per year with $15 million in guarantees, by the start of the June 9 mandatory minicamp.
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