Terrell Owens says he doesn’t care about the Hall of Fame

It’s been a few years since we’ve heard from Terrell Owens, which is a good thing, because we were really in a T.O. overload during a few years in the mid-aughts. But now that he’s been out of the picture so long, it’s nice to hear his misguided, self-boasting, semi-delusional half-truths back in the news, like this week, when he told Rich Eisenhe doesn’t really care if he makes the Hall of Fame next year alongside surefire first-ballot nominee Brett Favre.

“I can’t wrap my head around that whole process because it really, literally, doesn’t mean that much to me. I understand what I’ve done on the field and it’s probably well deserving of [the Hall], but I’m being honest, it really doesn’t bother me whether I get in or not.”

There it is! T.O. still hasn’t lost any zip off his fastball. Put that back in the context of 2005 and it could have been another passive-aggressive shot against Donovan McNabb. Let’s analyze: T.O. says it “literally” doesn’t mean anything to him, then lobbies for himself by saying he’s deserving of the Hall, then restates that it doesn’t bother him, throwing in an “I’m being honest,” which is code for “hey, just to let you know, my next sentence may contain some untruths.”

T.O. continued to suggest that he “literally” was mistaken when he said the Hall “literally” doesn’t mean much to him.

“I guess [being in the Hall] from a standpoint of a legacy or what my kids can really see what I’ve done, the body of work and appreciate it, then yeah, and my family,” Owens told Eisen. “But me, personally, it really doesn’t do anything for me because I never played the game for that.”

How novel. The thing is, headaches and the occasional pass-route dogging aside, T.O. should be a no-doubt-about-it first ballot Hall of Famer. He was a receiving superstar for three teams. He did something no one else did and led Andy Reid’s Philadelphia Eagles to the Super Bowl (on one leg, no less). He’s second in career receiving yardage and third in receiving touchdowns. He’s one of 10 men to have 1,000 receptions or more, ranking sixth on that list, even five years after retiring.

Whatever you think of Owens, he was the rare NFL wide receiver who could take over a game himself. He was pure entertainment in sport that often takes itself way too seriously. He might be dinged for trying to hold on in third-rate leagues or annoying media members with his push-up press conferences or locker-room signs, but Terrell Owens is a first-ballot Hall of Famer. And if he’s not, well, don’t worry, it seems like everyone makes it into the football Hall of Fame one day.