With the
Eagles season winding down and the team officially
eliminated from playoff contention, some past drama has resurfaced regarding two legendary figures in Philadelphia.
Back in 2004, the
Philadelphia Eagles acquired Terrell Owens to pair with franchise quarterback Donovan McNabb and the initial results were dynamic, as McNabb and Owens led the Eagles to a 13-3 record and appearance in Super Bowl XXXIX.
The Eagles went on to lose to New England 24-21, with Owens carrying the Birds offense on one leg. Fast forward six months later and the relationship between quarterback and wide receiver quickly evaporated.
When previously asked about the top, Owens insinuated that McNabb,
the relationship deteriorated after McNabb allegedly became jealous of the wide receiver, and changed his interactions towards him.
“A lot of people speculate as to what happened but I think over the years now, people see that I wasn’t really the problem in Philly,” Owens told Adam Schein on Mad Dog Radio. “People said that Donovan and I had some friction. Maybe he had some friction with me, but I didn’t have any with him.
“From my understanding, he had a problem with the way the city embraced me and not the way they embraced him. I am going by what I’ve heard in the streets.”
During a January 2020 installment of
“Untold Stories” with Bleacher Report’s Master Tesfatsion, the six-time Pro Bowler believes the drama between him and Owens “broke up” the Eagles.
“The offseason goes through and then all of a sudden there’s turmoil there and (Owens and the Eagles) are in a conversation going back and forth, and we had to answer those questions instead of focusing on what we need to do in order to get back to where we were,” McNabb said. “I thought that was a major distraction for us … That was something that kind of broke us up.”
Whether it was by design or just coincidence,
Tesfatsion landed an interview with Owens almost a year after McNabb, and the intel is outstanding.
Owens, like many players in today’s NFL, had outplayed his contract and wanted a new deal. It appeared that Owens felt some type of way about McNabb not endorsing a new deal for the Hall of Fame wide receiver that took McNabb to new heights in that initial season together.
During his sitdown with ‘Untold Stories’, Owens tells a story of a “hungover” McNabb, puking in the huddle because he was out drinking before the Super Bowl.
“Why would somebody lie, there were teammates that said he threw up in the huddle.”
“I’ve talked to teammates since then, and “know for a fact”, that he was out before Super Bowl XXXIX, drinking before the biggest game, pretty much of all our lives.”
Owens went on to harp on McNabb’s conditioning problems, and how the Eagles star quarterback’s behavior was “irresponsible.”
If what Owen’s said is remotely true, McNabb should probably be in the Hall of Fame himself after the quarterback went 31 of 51, for 357 yards and 3 touchdowns.
The Eagles undoing were McNabb’s 3 interceptions in the contest, while it also should be noted that the usual dual-threat quarterback only carried the ball one time in the contest.
