It looks like for the time being, former Buffalo Bills wide receiver Terrell Owens will remain unemployed. Owens visited the Cincinnati Bengals last night, but today the team went with Antonio Bryant, signing him to a four-year deal that could be worth as much as $28 million.
At this time no other teams have publicly expressed interest in Owens and word is Buddy Nix won’t consider bringing him back.
Still, don’t expect the eccentric receiver to be out of work for long. Washington and Miami have already been looking at receivers and a few more will join the fray.
The offseason fun for the Buffalo Bills and the rest of the NFL soon gets underway. The annual free agent shopping spree commences at the stroke of midnight Friday and obviously the NFL draft is less than two months away. The Bills will be looking to find as many pieces as they can to improve their team and speculation bounds daily on how they’ll go about doing it.
They need at least one if not a pair of offensive tackles. Finding a nose guard and at least one defensive end is a priority for the defense as well as various depth upgrades. A quarterback is more than just a miniscule possibility and with news coming out that Terrell Owens and Josh Reed definitely won’t be back, the team suddenly needs help at wide receiver.
The Buffalo Bills have announced that the team has informed wide receivers Terrell Owens and Josh Reed, as well as defensive end Ryan Denney, that the team will not pursue re-signing them. All three players are unrestricted free agents, and will be seeking employment elsewhere come March 5.
For Owens, it’s the end of a one-year marriage gone wrong. One of the most decorated receivers in NFL history, Owens struggled in 2009 as a Bill, hauling in 55 passes for 829 yards, with five touchdowns. Owens’ biggest accomplishment in his one year in Buffalo was recording his 1,000th reception in a Week 16 loss to Atlanta. He’ll be one of the biggest names available via free agency this year.
Free agency is under a week away. The Buffalo Bills aren’t overly concerned about retaining their own because unlike most teams, the Bills don’t have many worth resigning. On paper Terrell Owens is an exception.
But let’s be real here, folks. By all accounts I’ve heard Owens’ interest in playing for a new team is matched only by Buffalo’s desire to have him move on. Don’t get me wrong; there are no hard feelings. Owens did Buffalo a huge favor by signing with the organization. He generated buzz, helped move season tickets and times even helped on the field.
(Admitted hot head fan/blogger Joe Pinzone AKA “JoeFromNYC” has a blueprint to solve the Buffalo Bills woes. Many won’t agree with his views–and we probably won’t either. But they’re still interesting enough to publish. This is the third in a series of moves he would like to see the Bills make to return to respectability)
Is it getting hot in here or is it just me? I already sense the disdain towards my first two moves as Buffalo Bills general manager. The people have spoken and they said I’m crazy to trade Lee Evans. I made my points perfectly clear that Evans is overpaid and the Bills need draft picks. I’m also having people say that Evans is a key marketing tool for the Bills.
The chances of Terrell Owens returning to the Buffalo Bills in 2010 are slim. The aging receiver had one of the worst years of his career in terms of production and though he behaved nobly during his one-year tenure, it’s not exactly government science that he’s expected to sign elsewhere come March.
By league rule there’s always the option of placing the franchise or transition tag on him, making it a near-lock he’d be back in the Bills’ fold. But we’re going to go on a limb and predict that’s not happening.
Mike Garafolo of the Newark Star-Ledgerpublished Friday the price tags that will accompany franchise and transition players. Owens would cost Buffalo $9.521 million if franchised or $8.651 million to transition.
Buffalo Bills wide receiver Terrell Owens, who missed practice on Thursday and Friday due to illness, has been listed as questionable for Sunday’s home tilt with the New England Patriots.
Owens, who has 45 receptions for 705 yards and 4 touchdowns on the season, is Buffalo’s leading receiver. The upset-minded Bills would likely be forced to start Josh Reed next to veteran Lee Evans on Sunday if Owens can’t go. Owens was in team meetings on Friday, reports BuffaloBills.com, and Owens has been listed as questionable and played in games earlier this season.
Terrell Owens appeared on Fox Sports Jay Glazer’s “After Party” yesterday. During the interview, which also happened to be on his 36th birthday (party was in New York City), Owens talked about a variety of things. Among them, he plans on playing another two to three years, and he certainly didn’t dismiss a return to Buffalo next year, although his only concern for now is finishing the season strong.
After being as unobtrusive as a sick child through half his first, and likely only season in Buffalo, Terrell Owens has made some noise on the field the past few weeks. He has 14 catches for 291 yards and a pair of touchdowns in his last two games.
Uninterestingly enough, Owens, known as much for his mouth than his hands, has been utterly robotic with the media. “I’m just going with the plays that are called” is about the most intriguing sound byte he’s given us this season.
His season has turned around on the field, and after Tuesday so has his withdrawn press conferences off it. If Owens is only here for the next five games, he’s ready to make every moment count, whether it’s on the football field or in front of the podium.
That was the expression uttered by Terrell Owens’ bodyguard Pablo on the premiere of the “The T.O. Show” on VH-1 this summer. There could be a million nouns used to pinpoint T.O.’s performance the first half of his season in Buffalo, and beauty wouldn‘t be one of them. Though the first eight games of 2009 Owens grabbed all of 23 passes, managed just 281 yards and caught exactly one touchdown pass. He was on pace for his worst season since his rookie year with San Francisco in 1996.
But a funny thing happened to his humdrum, one-and-done campaign. The T.O. turnaround is in full flight and suddenly, labeling it as beauty would be quite the understatement. Breathtaking may be more fitting.
Let’s give some credit where its due. The Buffalo Bills were facing an uphill battle coming into their Sunday contest at Jacksonville with an already insurmountable amount of injuries, and the bug relentlessly took chomps out of three more starters by days end.
They also had less than a full week to prepare following off-field turmoil after the Dick Jauron firing on Tuesday. Perry Fewell was only named interim coach on Tuesday, so you’ll have to forgive him if every minor detail wasn’t thoroughly covered in less than five days.
But it is what is. Bad teams find a way to lose games and that’s exactly what the Bills did. They had two touchdowns called back on penalties. Fewell and starting quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick demonstrated deplorable late first half clock management skills, which may or may not have cost them four points. And they botched a designed two point conversion fake.
Dick Jauron met with the media this afternoon, a day after the Buffalo Bills 41-17 fiasco in Tennessee that saw them give up 24 unanswered fourth quarter points.
On the injury front, Demetrius Bell suffered a knee injury yesterday and Ashton Youboty left with a high ankle sprain.
Bell will see a doctor again today after seeing the team’s physician yesterday, but Jauron sounded anything but assured he‘d back soon.
“We’re not optimistic about that at this point.” Jauron said., who also indicated they’ll bring in some free agents to work out this week.
When it comes to meltdowns, Amy Winehouse has nothing on these Buffalo Bills.
It was the defining play of the game and for the Bills, their season. In the fourth quarter Sunday of a deadlocked game with Tennessee, the defense faced a third down and goal from just inside the two. Hold the Titans to a field goal and momentum was one their side. Allow a touchdown and the game is likely over.
Chris Johnson took a handoff from Vince Young and went smack dab into Bryan Scott and Paul Posluszny. Two guys went down. Johnson wasn’t one of them. He ran through both Bills defenders, into the end zone, and just like that the Bills were down a touchdown with 10:44 remaining to play.
From there the Bills did what has been customary this season. They folded like a lawn chair. A Titans field goal and two interception returns for touchdowns closed out the game, as the Bills gave up and gave out in their 41-17 defeat.
Even after having a bye week, the extra time off has failed to heal the injury ravaged Buffalo Bills.
Terrell Owens was not a participant at practice today. He’s suffering from a strained hip.
“I don’t know,” Jauron said when asked about how it happened. “He practiced on Monday and it wasn’t bothering him. On late Tuesday all of a sudden it really started to bother him.”
“He was in meetings (today), but it was very uncomfortable for him. So right now it’s pretty uncomfortable. We’re kind of hoping it goes away as quick as it came. That’s our hope. We really won’t know anymore until tomorrow.”
In a way, it’s fitting that 2009 is the Buffalo Bills’ 50th anniversary of existence. I say that because if you’ve been around for all or even most those years, you’d be hard pressed to find more than a small handful of seasons more exasperating than this one.
Despite having sufficient talent, this is a team and an organization clearly stuck in the mud. With the exception of a certain rookie who has the same amount of interceptions as our two quarterbacks have touchdown passes, combined, nobody has played closed to their expectations.
For that, we’ve compiled our midseason list of the five Least Valuable Players (LVP). It wasn’t as easy as you think, as there were many candidates to choose from.
Baggage.. And a penchant for throwing others under the bus. That’s the reputation, earned or not that followed Terrell Owens to Buffalo.
In a past littered with on-and-off field feuding with quarterbacks, offensive coordinators and receiver coaches a like, Owens vocal antics have filled up a library worth of ESPN material.
It’s been a different story in Buffalo, though– a polar opposite of sorts. We’re now nearly half way through the season, and as evidenced by his press conference today, the only person T.O. is throwing under the bus appears to be himself.
The Buffalo Bills shocked the football world way back on March 7, 2009 when they made by far their highest-profile free agent signing in franchise history by inking WR Terrell Owens to a one-year, $6.5 million deal. The move was heralded as the Bills’ boldest move towards fielding a winning team and an explosive offense, and with Owens lining up next to Lee Evans, visions of big plays danced in Bills fans’ heads.
Even if Terrell Owens won‘t confess, he knows it was supposed to better than this. It doesn’t matter Buffalo was the only team that showed serious interest when he became a free agent this summer; things were supposed to go better.
Owens with Lee Evans was to be a deadly combination. Who were defenses going to focus on? Add a budding Pro Bowler at running back in Marshawn Lynch, and Trent Edwards was prepared to bust out in 2009. Owens expected to be the catalyst for an offense ready to explode and end a nine-year playoff drought. I mean, surely his signing was more than a $6.5-million marketing ploy by Russ Brandon, no?