T.O. didn't know entire playbookIf preparation is part of the job, receiver isn't getting the job done10:49 AM CDT on Monday, March 12, 2007IRVING – You would think $10 million would be enough to persuade Terrell Owens to learn the Cowboys' playbook from cover to cover.
Guess not.
What do you expect from a player who admittedly slept through meetings and usually left his playbook in his locker when he went home for the night?
The Cowboys deserved much more from their highest-paid player.
"I knew my plays," T.O. wrote in a text message. "I put everything I love on that."
The way his mind works, he probably thinks he did know his plays. In training camp, the Cowboys asked him not to focus on a segment of the playbook because he was having a difficult time grasping it. But you would figure a prideful player like T.O. – at some point during the season – would familiarize himself with every facet of the playbook, if for no other reason to make sure the Cowboys threw him the ball even more.
But he didn't.
Perhaps that's why several times Tony Romo had to tell him what to do after the Cowboys broke the huddle during their playoff loss to Seattle. Trust me, the crowd noise wasn't that loud. Within the organization, T.O.'s lack of familiarity with the playbook wasn't a secret. Players knew. Coaches knew. Front-office personnel knew. After all, Romo and others had to tell him the plays during practice, on occasion, so it surprised few when he wasn't sure what to do during games.
Let's be real. It doesn't do Romo, Jerry Jones or anyone else any good to publicly acknowledge T.O. didn't know the entire offense or comment on it. Not when you have a high-strung, emotional player who carries a grudge with the best of them.
As Jerry gets ready to give T.O. a $3 million roster bonus – the deadline is June 3 – that will entitle the mercurial receiver to a $5 million salary this season, he should demand T.O. know the entire offense and fine him for conduct detrimental to the club every time someone has to tell him what to do after he leaves the huddle.
Then, perhaps, T.O. will stop snoozing in meetings and prepare more seriously.
Doctors say T.O. probably won't be ready to catch passes until training camp after having surgery to repair a torn tendon in his finger. The more pressing question is whether T.O. will make it a priority to learn the entire playbook, so he can return to being a Pro Bowl-caliber player.
Learn every facet of the offense, T.O., and the Cowboys can move you around in formations or put you in motion to create mismatches. It's one thing to lead the NFL in drops. It's something completely different for T.O. to whiff on his assignments.
That's absolutely ridiculous.
We all know T.O. makes a big deal about the effort he puts forth in practice. No one questions that. No one could. Or should. Nor can you question his desire to win on game day.
But playing hard and practicing hard is only part of being a professional. Preparation is equally important. The NFL is full of talented players who don't maximize their potential because they don't prepare their minds with the same intensity as their bodies.
T.O. falls into that category.
Then there are guys like Greg Ellis, who maximizes every ounce of his ability with intense film study and preparation. There's no way an undersized player like Dat Nguyen could've played eight seasons without using recognition from film study to beat blockers to spots and make plays before they could get to him.
Who cares how hard you play if you don't know where to line up? Or you don't know what route to run? Or both. It's not like it happened every play. Or even every series. But it happened way too often for a player who considers himself one of the game's elite receivers.
He caught 85 passes for 1,180 yards and a league-leading 13 touchdowns last season, but T.O. will tell you he didn't play at an elite level, if he's being honest. There were too many dropped passes and too many routes that existed only in his mind.
The Cowboys say T.O. will be different this year.
They say he'll have a better relationship with new receivers coach Ray Sherman than he ever did with Todd Haley, with whom he bickered much of the season. They say he'll perform better for a players' coach like Wade Phillips than a taskmaster like Bill Parcells.
And they say his second year in this offense – offensive coordinator Jason Garrett is supposed to keep much of the terminology the same – will give T.O. a better understanding of the offense than he had last year.
If those things occur, then maybe T.O. will be one of the game's best receivers again. He certainly wasn't last season.
How could he? He didn't even know the plays.
