T.O. Needs to Give Himself a Time-Out

"That's better. For me. Not so much for everybody else, though."

Cincinnati Bengals wide-receiver and future foot-in-mouth Hall of Fame-candidate Terrell Owens has taken a lot of flak recently for comments he made towards New York Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis when really he should be shown some measure of leniency. I mean, fans should come to expect this sort of thing from the guy by now.

We're talking about a guy who, for reasons unknown, still finds it necessary to lash out at quarterback Donovan McNabb despite neither playing on the team that first brought the odd couple together. We're talking about a guy who whines so much about getting balls thrown in his direction that it must serve as overcompensation for, well, use your imagination. And, finally, we're talking about a guy that is so superficial he's not even willing to go after the "real" Kim Kardashian (because you can only be so real after so many undeniable plastic surgeries), but hired a dating agency to fix him up with a lookalike. The trend here isn't towards classlessness. It's towards idiocy. Owens may be talented, but it's clear he's lost a few brain cells as a result of too many hard hits to the head over the years.

So, when Owens called Revis "just an average corner" in front of reporters on Tuesday it wasn't so much a case of him trying to insult the two-time Pro Bowler, as it was of him putting on his dunce cap, or maybe even forgetting to wear his (non-football) headgear altogether and falling down few moments beforehand, as he's clearly prone to doing. There's a such thing as playful trash talk among longtime rivals and then there's getting an opponent all pissed off and motivated two days before facing them. Here's exactly what Owens said after calling Revis "average" and before the Jets beat them 26-10 on Thursday:

"Everybody has assessed his abilities as far as what he did last year, shutdown corner, this and that. He did very well last year. But I think I'm looking forward to the challenge just like he's looking forward to it," he said, which taken by itself isn't that bad. But when you also consider that Owens referred to Revis as a slouch in a word-association game with the NFL Network last January, you have to wonder why Owens is so confrontational. Did Revis secretly bag himself a Kardashian and Owens is just acting like a fool out of retaliatory jealousy? Of course it's more likely the fact that in four head-to-head meetings, Owens just has one touchdown against Revis. Some average corner.

In a world where reporters are drawn to the colourful characters that always have something new and interesting to say, Owens is almost singlehandedly making a case for professional athletes to continue turning to the canned and cliched one-liners that everyone, not just journalists, hates. Because every other word out of his mouth seems to be bulletin-board material for the opposition. But, then again, this kind of behaviour should be expected from a character so interesting that he and teammate Chad Ochocinco have dubbed themselves Batman and Robin. It's almost as if by referring to Revis and fellow Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie as Ren and Stimpy, as he did on The T.Ocho Show, that he's not trying to incite anger in the two but rather recruit them into his cartoonish universe in which he's actually still relevant. Pathetic is more like it.

Young Acts just that, like a Grade Schooler with Apology to Fisher

When did text messaging become the go-to means of communication? It used to be you text messaged someone to say things that went without saying... things like "hi", "I love you", "can't wait until I come home so I can give you some sweet loving", and, maybe, in extreme situations: "I think you're really nice and all, but it's not working out." Even that last one generally goes without saying and serves as a mere common courtesy, or that's at least the premise I've been acting under all these years.

As such, is it maybe safe to assume that the Tennessee Titans and quarterback Vince Young are on the verge of a highly public break-up? Because, judging by how Young has acted the past few days, it's sadly ironic to hear that he's been the one sending out the texts when it's clear he's the one that needs dumping... as soon as possible.

"You're welcome. Use them in good health. I'll throw my shin pads next week."

Young clearly has the pedigree to be a starting quarterback in the NFL. Taken third overall in the 2006 draft, he's been named the league's offensive rookie of the year and to the Pro Bowl in 2009. Still as good as his instincts are on the field, someone needs to sit him down, have a good chat with him, and let him know right from wrong on the sidelines and that shoulder pads are not an appropriate alternative to footballs and autographs when giving away souvenirs to fans. That would be the first thing he needs to be taught.

The second thing is that communicating electronically is less than ideal when you can just as easily apologize to teammates and your coach in person and save everyone the embarrassment of misinterpreting the inevitable "lol" that gets added in every once in a while by accident. Even though it was presumably left off in his text-message apology to coach Jeff Fisher on Tuesday and his tweet out to teammates hours after his season-ending finger injury and temper tantrum on Sunday, it may as well not have been in order to convey what probably would have been the clear-cut insincerity in his voice. There's little other way to interpret what can only be considered the immature actions of a 27-year-old.

Maybe Young does mean it when he says he's sorry for acting like a child, but when you're on the same team as Randy Moss it shouldn't take a whole lot of effort on your part to keep a low profile. Sure Young may just have been frustrated in regard to the situation at hand, but there is a line between taking your job seriously and wanting to play and acting like an overgrown child that isn't getting his way. Young crossed it on Sunday and, although it is a metaphor, the only way to uncross it is in person. You can't unsend a text message and you can't make up for potentially tenure-ending mistakes in 140 characters or less. Even 140 characters or more. There's a reason it's called Twitlonger.

So, now the 5-5 Titans, who are just a single game behind the AFC South-leading Jacksonville Jaguars despite a three-game losing streak, will presumably turn to the next-highest name on their depth chart in Rusty Smith, who has completed a total of three passes in his short career, leading to questions on how on earth he got the nickname Rusty when he hasn't even had enough playing time to break a sweat. Still, this could turn out to be a good thing and give the team some much-needed urgency to go looking for a new starter, because you really don't want a QB nicknamed Rusty, and if Young hasn't grown up yet he probably never will. Because Young is done for the season, the Titans have nothing to lose. Even if he wasn't, you don't need him giving one of his unbroken fingers to the organization sometime down the road.

Why so Serious, NFL? Johnson Gets Fined for Doing His Best Ochocinco Impression

Buffalo Bills wide-receiver Stevie Johnson was fined $5,000 for what one can only assume was making light of a bad situation in Buffalo this year. After scoring against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, Johnson lifted his jersey to reveal a t-shirt with the words: "Why So Serious?" on them. Apparently being 2-8 (then 1-8, before the 49-31 win against the Bengals) wasn't reason enough for Johnson. The big question is why would anyone need to make fun of Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco, who refer to themselves as Batman and Robin. With the Bengals also at 2-8, aren't they a big-enough joke already?

What Goes Around Comes Around: Samuel Hit with Monster Fine following Monster Hit

Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel laid out New York Giants wide-receiver Derek Hagan on Sunday with a helmet-to-helmet hit and now he's been hit with a $40,000 fine by the league. For an Eagle, he certainly struts like a cock of the walk right afterwards, as if he thought he actually did a good thing. Didn't he know anything short of decapitation is frowned upon???

Favre Is no Longer the Answer in Minnesota, unless the Question Is: why Did Childress Get Canned?

It isn’t surprising that the Minnesota Vikings fired head coach Brad Childress this week. It is downright shocking that Brett Favre is still the team's starting quarterback.

Now the Vikings are 3-7, good for third place in the relatively weak NFC North. One can make a good argument that the only reason the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers are 7-3 is because they have the good fortune of facing Minnesota and the Detroit Lions every so often... but that’s an argument for another day. The bottom line here is that Minnesota was well within its rights to let go of Childress because the results weren’t there. Seems simple enough.

"Don't worry Chilly. I'll get you soon enough."

However, that same sound logic can be used to successfully make a case for Favre being relegated to back-up duty after what has by and large been a drop-back-down-to-earth kind of season. At 40 years old last year, he played like he was still 30. Now at 41, he’s playing like the grandfather he is, minus the walker he should by all accounts be using with that broken ankle of his.

Brett Favre may be completing 60.2% of his passes, which isn’t that bad (unless you look at the 69.5% Drew Brees is completing to lead the league), but his passer rating is only 69.6, which is second-worst in the entire NFL. I mean, he’s fallen on such hard times that he’s recently had to settle for groupies his own age. It sucks to be him is all I’m saying.

Now, it’s been argued that Childress being fired was justified and he’s now had to learn the hard way that time actually moves forward in a linear-like manner. Really, he didn’t have to get fired. All he had to do was pass kindergarten and get to know how to read his watch – realize that time was ticking down and not up on Favre’s career. 

As great as Favre played last year, his skills degrading to this point eventually were a foregone conclusion. It probably just happened faster than anyone wanted to admit, least of all Childress, who probably has yet to figure out that waiting for Favre to play like he once did is about the same as expecting hovering cars to hit the market any day now. Sure, it’s all fine and dandy in principle (everyone wants a hover-car), but unless you have a time machine at your disposal it actually happening is about as likely as a professional athlete remaining faithful to their wife. And Childress didn’t have to look that far to find that out.

"OMG! He didn't get picked off!"

You’d think Minnesota would want to take a long, hard look at him now that the playoffs are a mere pipedream now and a high draft pick is becoming more and more likely. And, yet, Favre is still the team’s starter. It’s gotten to the point that one has to believe the only way back-up Tarvaris Jackson is ever going to get a lasting shot at handling a pigskin is if he takes a sabbatical from football and turns to farming instead. He is still making $1.176 million so he can’t complain too much, but raising actual pigs has at least got to be more rewarding than being a glorified human-sized insurance policy. 

So now the team’s former defensive coordinator, Leslie Frazier, has been tasked with righting the ship, which makes perfect sense considering the team is third-last in points scored in the entire league. Who knows? Maybe a defense-first approach may work out for the best, seeing as Favre continues to lead the league with 17 interceptions.

Rivers: The Most Underrated QB in the NFL?

There is an upper echelon of quarterbacks currently in the NFL made up of the likes of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger (when he's not busy screwing up his personal life), Michael Vick (ditto), Brett Favre (when he's not busy getting coaches fired due to his incompetence in old age), and maybe Jay Cutler (in some parallel universe, where he isn't as inconsistent as the day is long). It's relatively non-exclusive company, all things considered, and yet the San Diego Chargers' Philip Rivers is seldom mentioned in that same group of players.

"Worse than Ryan Leaf??? Who said that?"

Truth be told, he may just be mentioned in passing for the simple reason that he's forever tied to the Mannings for being the unlucky piece of meat that went the other way in the trade for Eli once upon a time. If that wasn't bad enough, the New York Giants' lack of faith in him was arguably justified with their Super Bowl victory a few years ago, with the younger Manning earning MVP honours. He will also never likely get adequate props for even playing his position competently thanks to Ryan Leaf forever setting the bar so very, very low. All anyone needs to say in response to an argument that Rivers is better than Leaf is: "so is everybody else." Case closed.

While it would be a stretch to make a solid argument that Rivers deserves to be recognized as the best right now, there is definitely one to be made that he is the most underrated. What he has accomplished over the last few weeks with the Chargers has been nothing short of amazing, his taking a 2-5 team on the cusp of irrelevance and bringing them back to .500 and into the playoff picture.

Now at 5-5, the Chargers are just one game back of the AFC West-leading Kansas City Chiefs. With six games left to be played, including one against the Chiefs in three weeks, San Diego could most definitely find itself on the inside looking out come the post-season. A Super Bowl berth is likely out of the question, but the team has come a long way considering how far back it was was a few short weeks ago at 2-4 with Pro Bowl wide-receiver Vincent Jackson forced to rethink his idiotic stance of holding out for a long-term deal only to be stuck with an incredibly short-term one worth six games. He's set to return to the line-up next week against the Indianapolis Colts.

What's truly impressive was Rivers's performance against the Broncos on Monday, with his four touchdowns. With his 233 passing yards in the game, he is now on pace for 5083 passing yards this season, one short of Dan Marino's record 5084. He has also had at least one touchdown pass in 23-straight games, the best right now in the league. In his last four games, he's thrown for 11 of his 23 on the season. Eli Manning has two fewer. What's probably more impressive is that Peyton has just 20.

The inevitable conclusion from all this (aside from the scewed view that Eli is actually better than his brother) is that Rivers just may be the runaway favourite MVP candidate, but only if he is able to carry his team into the playoffs. It's a realistic scenario to say the least. I mean, even Cutler's Chicago Bears are 7-3.

He McCann Go all the Way! Except for that Part where He Went out of Bounds

There's little reason to hold this touchdown against the Dallas Cowboys. Truth be told, they arguably would  still have won Sunday's game without it, beating the Detroit Lions 35-19. But it would still be nice for the NFL and its officials to not hand out points to the Cowboys out of pity. We get it. They suck, but they're America's favourite team. Quite the conflict, sure, but it doesn't mean giving them breaks all of sudden is going to get them into the Super Bowl. They are still two games behind the Washington Redskins for third place in the NFC East. There are just six games left in the season. There are also so many times cornerback Bryan McCann can do this. He's got to run out of gas eventually, right?

Roethlisberger Dumbounded as to why Seymour Would Punch Him; no Word yet on whether That's a Side-Effect of Being Punched

One can only guess at this point in time why Oakland Raiders defensive-end Richard Seymour decided to punch Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger on Sunday during Pittsburgh's 35-3 win. The best ones:

1) Pittsburgh was winning 21-3 at the time.

2) Perhaps more importantly, Oakland was losing 21-3.

3) Roethlisberger touched him and he don't like being touched... which completely explains his need to pursue a career in football which is like 95% accidental touching of your opponents' private parts while trying to tackle them to the ground. The other 5%? Not-so-accidental touching while in a scrum.

4) Seymour mistook Roethlisberger for New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick, apparently not yet having gotten over being traded to Oakland last season.

5) Roethlisberger made some wise crack about having just scored and Seymour thought he was talking about his sister; you never really know with Roethlisberger.

All that being said, in their post-game interviews, all Roethlisberger and head coach Mike Tomlin could do was talk about how much respect they had for Seymour, which is classy to say the least under such strained circumstances, but still makes one wonder if maybe Seymour threatened each of them with further physical abuse if they bad-mouthed him to the press, right after he stole their lunch money. What is for sure is that Seymour will at least get fined by the NFL this week. What is still uncertain (aside from the actual reason for the punch)? Why it took up until now for someone to punch Roethlisberger, when clearly he's had it coming for some time.