Posted by Eye on Football staff

Terrell Owens, looking to get back into pro football, did just that Saturday night in his debut for the Allen (Texas) Wranglers of the Indoor Football League, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Owens caught three passes for 49 yards and three touchdowns in Allen's 50-30 opening victory at home over the Wichita Wild.

“I think I did all right,” Owens told the Morning News. “I’m just really trying to keep myself in shape for the most part. I feel like I’m healthy enough to play football. There’s not anything that I can’t do.”

The 38-year-old was on the field for 38 plays and was targeted five times in front of a crowd of 5,711. Wranglers owner Jon Frankel told the Morning News that the crowd was larger than the total home attendance for the 2011 season.

Owens hasn’t caught a pass in an NFL game since Dec. 12, 2010 and is using the IFL club as a hopeful springboard to an NFL tryout. He possesses an opt-out clause, in case an NFL franchise offers him a contract. However, after having a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee repaired last year, he hasn’t received much interest from NFL teams.

Facing some press and man-to-man coverage, Owens did not catch a pass in the third or fourth quarters.

 

New England apparently won't be in Moss' future. (Getty Images)

By Ryan Wilson

Randy Moss reintroduced himself to the public last week when he took to UStream to talk about everything from his NFL return to pro wrestling to his three piranha (one's named Gargamel because he's mean). Naturally, the media (us included) ran with it, speculating on where he might end up in 2012.

The list includes the obvious choices -- the Patriots, Redskins, 49ers, Jets and Eagles -- as well as the not-so-obvious: the IFL's Chicago Slaughter. (We talked about all this on a recent Pick-6 Podcast, conveniently embedded below.)


But Moss also had his detractors. Cris Carter reminded everyone that his former teammate was a quitter, and the Cowboys preemptively indicated that they'd pass on his services.

In Sunday's Boston Globe, Shalise Manza Young reiterated what some people already suspected: a Pats-Moss reunion isn't in the offing.

"Moss seems realistic about his chances, acknowledging that he may not play anywhere in 2012," Young wrote. "As for a possible Patriots reunion, the feeling here is that that ship has sailed."

If the Patriots were to pursue a veteran it would be someone like Reggie Wayne (we've been beating this drum for months now), especially given how poor a fit Chad Ochocinco turned out to be. If, instead, New England is looking for a young playmaker at the position, they could use their bottomless supply of draft picks to trade up and grab Justin Blackmon, Kendall Wright or Michael Floyd. Or as CBSSports.com's Pat Kirwan suggests, they could make a play for Steelers restricted free agent Mike Wallace. It would only cost them the 31st overall pick, and Wallace, unlike the would-be rookies, is already one of the league's best young wideouts.

As for Moss, we still think he's a more viable option than Terrell Owens. This falls firmly under the heading of "the soft bigotry of low expectations," but we're also talking about two guys in their mid-30s who last played in the NFL in 2010. And unlike T.O., who had a nasty habit of burning bridges, Moss was generally well regarded in Tennessee, his last stop before retirement.

He was great," one team official told NFL Network's Albert Breer earlier this week. "He was a great personality, he brought an energy to practice. He was constantly talking, but it was all in a competitive way, not a negative way.

"As a player, he's never been a great practice player, but there were no issues. The problem was in games, he'd lose interest, he'd dog it sometimes. ... He gets frustrated with double teams; when he gets bracketed, he'll shut it down, and that causes a problem for you. But as a guy, he was good here."

And that's the rub. Are there teams willing to gamble on a guy who they know will "shut it down" in exchange for the occasional big-play payoff? Given the glut of wide receivers about to flood free agency, there may not be much of a market for Moss. Then again, there aren't many people capable of doing what Moss did regularly during his career. 

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What will the latest surgical report do to teams' interest in Manning? (Getty Images)

By Will Brinson & Ryan Wilson

Peyton Manning was sick of Randy Moss stealing the spotlight, obviously. Taking the attention back Wednesday was a report of a fourth procedure on Manning's neck, which, actually, probably didn't make Manning happy.

We break down that news, discuss how it affects Manning's value on the open market, what it means for "politician" Jim Irsay and all the Manning news that's fit to print.

Then we break down whether or not Andrew Luck is a "once-in-a-lifetime prospect," if Robert Griffin III can realistically compete with Luck for the No. 1 draft pick, where he would fit in the NFL. We also talk about Terrell Owens being broke, the possibility of Moss going to the IFL, Jerry Jones wanting Super Bowl L to come back to Dallas and what it means with Ron Jaworski getting the boot from the MNF booth.

(Did we mention that you should subscribe to the podcast via iTunes? And if you can't listen to the podcast below, download it here. And if you'd like to keep working while listening in your browser, pop that puppy out in a new tab here.)


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The Indoor Football League already has T.O. and now they want Randy Moss. (Getty Images)

By Ryan Wilson

CBSSports.com's Will Brinson might be the first person on the planet not associated with the Indoor Football League's website to see the news, but the IFL's Chicago Slaughter announced Wednesday that they have offered Randy Moss a contract.

The headline on GoIFL.com is a tad misleading -- "Randy Moss to the IFL" -- but we imagine that's the point.

Moss, who retired following the 2010 season and sat out in 2011, returned to the public eye on Monday when he announced via UStream that he wants to play football.

"Your boy is going to come back here and play some football, so I'm really excited. I had some things I had to adjust in my life."

Moss probably should've started that conversation by specifying "NFL football only."  Whatever, the IFL seized the opportunity and have offered Moss a deal.

(GoIFL.com)

“We’ve been looking for another receiver that can separate themselves from the cover guys in this league,” said Chicago Slaughter General Manager and President Jeff Sedivy. “Moss would be a perfect fit.”

Yes he would. But we're guessing that Moss is looking for something north of $225 per game. And unlike Terrell Owens, who is nearly broke and out of NFL opportunities, it's reasonable to think that Moss can still help an offense looking to stretch the field.

In fact, the Baltimore Sun's Mike Preston wrote Wednesday that "Moss is at the point where he wants a ring, and he could be a nice fit in Baltimore for a year, maybe two."

And new Rams coach Jeff Fisher, who coached Moss during his brief stint with the Titans in 2010 said “I thought the world of him over the six or eight weeks that I think we had him … I thought he was a terrific teammate and he did a great job in our locker room.”

Moss likely still faces long NFL odds, but that's more than we can say for T.O., who hasn't generated any interest in over a year.

Oh, and in case you missed the first few showings, MossTV is back: Wednesday night from 9:30-10:00 p.m. ET. How do we know? DaRealOtisMoss said so. You can watch it here.

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Owens says he trusted the wrong people and now he's nearly broke and facing mounting bills. (Getty Images)

By Ryan Wilson

The NFL season may be over but that doesn't mean there's no football on the horizon. Yes, the NFL Combine is less than two weeks away but the same day that offensive linemen and tight ends go through their on-field paces at Lucas Oil Stadium, Terrell Owens will be making is IFL debut with the Allen Wranglers.

Okay, you were probably expecting a bit more in the "Wait, there's still football!" build up. And we suspect that, come Februrary 25, many of you will opt to watch 350-pound guys run 40 yards in a straight line (possible unintentional comedy value) over T.O.'s not-so-triumphant return to football (if you're into tragicomedy, then maybe Owens and the Wranglers are for you).

Part of the reason T.O. signed up for IFL duty is because he had burned a lot of NFL bridges. And of those left standing, no one was interested enough in a 37-year-old wide receiver with behavior-management issues to give him a shot. So the Wranglers, where Owens is also co-owner, was his only football-playing option. Exacerbating matters: T.O., who was in the NFL for 15 seasons and signed contracts worth $80 million, is nearly broke.

Appearing on ESPN Radio recently, Owens, however, said people shouldn't feel sorry for him.

"Absolutely not," he said via Sports Radio Interviews. "As far as my situation? The thought that I’ve lost $80 million dollars? That’s a little bit skewed considering like you said if you look at the years and the contracts that I have had and me not actually completing a couple of those contracts in their entirety.

"Again no matter what I have lost money," he continued. "It’s partially my fault because I didn’t manage and I wasn’t on top of my financial people as I should have. Again who’s to say how much I lost? Have I lost money? Yeah. Was it $80 million? I doubt it. But at the same time I feel like this is a situation for me to go out and speak and let a lot of guys know that are coming into the National Football League or any league for that matter … When you have financial advisors that you’re dealing with and that are on their team that are supposed to be taking care of their finances … I feel victim to it because I had heard about these stories prior to it happening to me and there’s going to be some other stories after me. The fact that I took for granted the orientations and the seminars that we had during the course of football season where these guys basically came in and tried to help us, facilitate us and educate us on your financial matters. I didn’t take advantage of that because I was referred to this guy that mismanaged my situation by my agent and my marketing guys."

Owens first spoke publicly about his financial situation in the January issue of GQ, even recounting one story where a friend, "a guy who I'd helped when his grandmother passed," drained one of his bank accounts of more than $270,000. He says the bank returned the money but "it pretty much destroyed whatever trust in people I had left." The article says that Owens never had many friends — teammates never called him to party, he says, wrongly assuming that he was "too big" to socialize — and now, "I don't have no friends. I don't want no friends. That's how I feel."

His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, called when he found out Owens had taken huge finiancial losses.

"When Drew heard about what had happened with my money, he said, 'Oh man, is there anything I can do?' " Owens told GQ. "And I said, 'Dude, are you going to give me my money back? I don't think so, so why bother trying to appease me?' " (Rosenhaus' response: "In my opinion, the conversation did not go down that way." )

Now T.O. is left with barely anything in the bank, plenty of Bills -- including child support payments to four women that total $44,600 a month -- and until he signed with the Wranglers, no discernible income.

"Now I’m even hungrier to get back on top and do the things I think the way I should have been doing it," he told ESPN Radio. "I’ve had some people who have supposedly been in my corner that have my bests interests in heart and I’ve come to find out that’s not what happened. Again I will reiterate it is partially my fault because I wasn’t doing my due diligence to be on top of my own finances and it’s a sad situation.”

And that brings us back to the Wranglers. T.O. will make his debut in 11 days.

"…I’m using this as a platform really to keep myself in shape. The business side of it too is something that intrigued me, being a co-owner with the team, so again this is me transitioning into life after football. That’s the business side of it, obviously football doesn’t last forever and I feel I’m physically fit and can play at a productive level to where I can play a couple more years in the National Football League and that’s what I’m pushing for," he said. 

"Other than that I’m not going to give up hope just because somebody says that I’m 38 and I just had a knee injury. Injuries are part of the game. I think everybody knows my track record … I work out hard, I’m going to do whatever I can to get back on the field and get back to 100 percent and I’m doing that.”

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After 15 seasons and five teams, T.O.'s NFL career appears to be over. (Getty Images)

By Ryan Wilson

Terrell Owens last played in an NFL game on December 19, 2010 as a member of the Bengals. It was his first and last year in Cincinnati, one half of the self-proclaimed "Batman and Robin" along with Chad Ochocinco. The duo was so dynamic that quarterback Carson Palmer opted for retirement over another year in Cincy, T.O. wasn't re-signed and Ochocinco was shipped off to New England.

Owens, then 37, was allowed to walk for reasons other than his on-field skills. In 14 games during the 2010 season, he caught 72 passes for 983 yards including 10 touchdowns. Still, despite holding midseason 2011 workouts to show that he had fully recovered from knee surgery, Owens didn't get a sniff from any of the 32 NFL teams. Ultimately, he ended up joining the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League where he is also a co-owner.

T.O. appearing recently on KESN-FM, spoke about about his year away from the NFL and his IFL future.

"I'm using this as a platform to keep myself in shape," he said according to the Dallas Morning News. "The business end of it is something that intrigued me, being a co-owner with the team.

"This is me transitioning to life after football. I feel I'm physically fit and can play at a productive level to where I can play a couple of more years in the National Football League. That's what I'm pushing for. I'm not going to give up hope just because I'm 38 and just had a knee injury. I think a lot of why I probably didn't play this year, everybody keeps talking about the 'character' issues. The last two or three years relatively I was quiet, knowing that everybody was saying that I had a character issue, I'm disruptive, there's a lot of hype that comes with me, they're saying I'm a distraction here and there.

"That's all hearsay," Owens continued. "If you ask a bunch of my teammates, a lot of it is basically blown out of proportion, the media making me into a fall guy. Overall, will I ever admit that I was a bad teammate? Never. I wasn't a bad teammate. Was I disruptive. No I wasn't disruptive."

Here's the thing: Owens, as far as we know, was never arrested for beating his girlfriend or making it rain or carrying a concealed weapon. But it's also a stretch to say that he wasn't, at one time or another, disruptive. Owens implied that former teammate Jeff Garcia was gay, and then there was the falling out with Donovan McNabb. So, yeah, there's some revisionist history going on because, realistically, Owens could've helped a WR-needy team last season if not for he fact that he was, you know, a huge disruption.

"I feel like I have a lot of football left and I'm looking forward to getting back to playing," he said. "I think the thing ... I didn't get picked up was that a lot of general managers bought into the fact that the media thinks that I'm this bad guy, this rebel guy, this disruptive guy that divides and messes up team's chemistry. They won't allow me to turn over a new leaf. They won't allow me to be a better person. Anytime anything is brought up about me, they keep talking about things that happened five, six, seven years ago. Why don't I get a pass? I've kind of fallen into that villain category and I can't get out of that box."

And at 38, Owens likely won't get a chance, at least not in the NFL.

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By Josh Katzowitz

The player formerly known as Chad Johnson will be Chad Johnson yet again. (US Presswire)

Chad Ochocinco will become Chad Johnson once again. The reason, part I: a woman. The reason, part II: sound financial advice.

As Ochocinco reported on OCNN Twitter (via Yahoo Sports), Ochocinco will transform himself into Chad Johnson again by July 4, so, as TMZ reports, his fiancé Evelyn Lozada* won’t have a made up last name.

He changed his name before the 2008 season, and with his newest surname, his production dramatcially declined from when Chad Johnson was in his prime (particularly in 2010 when Terrell Owens was the top Bengals receiver and 2011 when Ochocinco was barely an afterthought with the Patriots).

*At the Indianapolis airport on Monday afternoon, CBSSports.com colleague and reality TV show junkie Pete Prisco pointed her out to me as we were going through the security line. I wish I could have asked her about this topic.

Eye on Baseball’s C. Trent Rosecrans makes an interesting point on the timing of the name change (if Ochocinco actually goes through with it). Although many of us in the Cincinnati market figured he would change his name back to Johnson after he retired, he might be making the move now because the league is switching from Reebok to Nike as the NFL’s official uniform provider.

With that move, the players won’t have to buy the entire backstock of their jerseys for changing their numbers and names, like they would have if Reebok still supplied the uniforms. Thus, it makes more financial sense for Ochocinco/Johnson to change his name this year, when every player hypothetically could switch numbers and names for free, than it would at any other time he is playing.  

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Ochocinco on the 2011 season: 'I bought into the Patriot Way, and it paid off.' (AP)

By Ryan Wilson

Chad Ochocinco is the forgotten man in New England's offense. Acquired just before training camp, the former Bengals Pro Bowler was supposed to provide Tom Brady something he lacked since Randy Moss was shipped out of town a month into the 2010 season: a deep threat.

Ochocinco, in theory, would've been the final piece to a multi-dimensional passing offense that included two of the league's best tight ends in Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez and the precision route-running of Wes Welker. Instead, Ochocinco, who finished the regular season with 15 receptions and one touchdown, played just one snap in the Patriots' Divisional playoff win over the Broncos and was inactive last week against the Ravens.

On Friday, Ochocinco spoke with the Boston Herald's Karen Guregian. Despite the lack of production this season, he said that he'd love to return to New England in 2012. But first things first: how has he coped with one of the toughest years of his NFL life? Randy Moss and Terrell Owens.

“For me, those guys were my outlets. Not Twitter,” he said. “To have those two guys in my corner, I talk to them all the time. (Moss) keeps me sane for 16 weeks, every week. Every week we talked. T.O., too. We’re close-knit, us so-called diva receivers. Who is going to understand what I’m talking about, or going through, from my standpoint? Not Bill (Belichick), not Tom (Brady). It’s like having my own personal support group. I love those two, man. I didn’t want to burden anyone else in here with that bull. They don’t want to hear that.”

There are countless theories for why Ochocinco's productivity tok a nosedive this season. One is that he's struggled to learn the Patriots' offense after spending 10 years in Cincinnati.

“Anything is different, when you’ve come from something you’re used to for so long. It’s like being married,” he said. “If I’m married to Halle Berry for 10 years, and her and I break up, and I marry Scarlett Johansson, there are going to be some things I have to adjust to based off what I’m used to. That’s just the way life is in general. What I was able to do was come in here and keep on working.”

So is Carson Palmer Halle Berry in this analogy? (Personally, we had him pegged for someone like Jennifer Garner: relevant seven or eight years ago before disappearing to have kids only to resurface in a promising situation. And, yes, the movie title is intentional.) And while Johannson's no slouch, Ochocinco has to go with Gisele Bündchen as his new wife, as a metaphor for his relationship with Tom Brady, right?

Either way, he says there's nothing bittersweet about finally making it to the Super Bowl despite having little to do with helping the Patriots get there.

“There’s a competitive side to me that is angry, the competitive nature in me that it didn’t go the way it normally has," Ochocinco said. "I routinely produce a certain way every year. So when that routine goes astray like it did this year, it feels funny. It’s something I had to get used to. But I took it in stride. I did everything I was asked on and off the field. I didn’t become disgruntled, as I’ve done in the past. When I want the ball, I’ve let it be known I want the ball. I didn’t do any of those things (this season). I bought into the Patriot Way, and it paid off. Maybe not the way everybody thought it would. I don’t know.

“Sometimes you work at something, and you don’t always get the results," he added. "Some people quit, some people keep grinding. I’m one of those who keeps grinding. And that’s it.”

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