The Hall of Fame is for celebrating the game’s greatest athletes and to preserve their legacy throughout history. And it has to be home for Terrell Owens.
It’s hard to understand why there is even an argument for Terrell Owens to not belong in the home of football’s heroes. It’s okay to have a loose interpretation on what it takes to be a Hall of Famer, but at the end of the day, it is a numbers game. Pure and simple.
Terrell Owens has the most receiving yards of any wide receiver sans Jerry Rice. He is third for touchdowns with 153. His 1,078 receptions are eighth all time. The numbers speak for themselves that he is an all-time great.
He led the league in touchdowns in three separate seasons. He made the Pro Bowl six times. Hall of Fame wide receiver Lance Alworth is the only other player to have five 1st-team All-Pro selections. Of course, Jerry Rice leads all receivers with ten.
What makes Terrell Owens is the diversity in his career. He did not have Joe Montana tossing the pigskin to him with Walsh looking from the sidelines. The closest he had was Steve Mariucci and Steve Young.
But once Steve Young left San Francisco, his career fell into the hands of Jeff Garcia, Donovan McNabb, Tony Romo, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Trent Edwards, and Carson Palmer. Fine quarterbacks and not nearly as rough as the quality of gunslingers Larry Fitzgerald had in his career. But it is amazing to see a player tally over 1,500 yards with all of these different offenses, quarterbacks, coaches, and schemes.
There should be no knock for his playoff success. He only played in a total of 12 playoff games in his 15-year career. But his heroic play in Super Bowl XXXIX with a fractured fibula puts him on the map that he came to play come January and in this case, February. Only two positions have a win-loss as a statistic. Quarterbacks and coaches. It is unwise to judge any player, let alone a wide receiver, for a team’s success.
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His personal win-loss record is 136-104 for the record.
So his off-field antics certainly give him a knock on his character, burning bridges with almost every team he played for. But antics do not take away from his amazing feats on the gridiron. Dislike the guy all you want, he is a special player.
The Hall of Fame can be vague with varying interpretations, but denying numbers is impossible. Joe Namath can lack numbers and hardware, but his influence on the game is undeniable with the bridge between the AFL and NFL in his improbable Super Bowl III win. Yao Ming was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame due to his international influence. The Hall of Fame
The Hall of Fame is open to all players who influence the game, but Canton can not deny unbelievable numbers in a numbers game.
Terrell Owens, despite his sometimes terrible personality, will be one of the greatest wide receivers in NFL history. It is already a mistake not to have him inducted on his first ballot, but 2016 can amend for that error.