Players Union Asking Eagles to Reinstate Owens

[Walter Cronkite]

The NFL Players Association wants the Philadelphia Eagles to cut Terrell Owens if they're not going to reinstate him after his four-game suspension is over.

"We're not asking them to play him, we can't force them to do that," Gene Upshaw, the NFLPA's executive director, said Wednesday. "But if they're not going to let him come back to practice and do all the other things associated with that, then we want them to cut him, let him become a free agent now."

The union already has appealed the four-game suspension levied on the wide receiver by the Eagles for what coach Andy Reid called "a large number of situations that accumulated over a long period of time."

The appeal will be heard before arbitrator Richard Bloch on Nov. 19.

But Upshaw said that even if the suspension is upheld, the Eagles can't just tell Owens to stay away from the team and its practice facility.

"We are taking the position that's additional punishment," Upshaw told The Associated Press. "It's not fair to a player not to have an additional chance."

Upshaw differentiated between the Eagles' suspension of Owens and Tampa Bay's decision two years ago to make Keyshawn Johnson inactive for the final six games of the season. Johnson signed in 2004 with Dallas, for whom he now plays.

"There was no suspension there. A team has the right to inactivate a player for whatever reason it wants," he said. "But in T.O.'s case, this is a team suspension, not a commissioner's deal. They're different. When we bargained in those rules, there was a reason for it. The most a player can be suspended is four games. You can't go beyond that."

Source: AP

[Flying High]

Always Room For Forgiveness

Always room for forgiveness especially since there were many wrongs committed by T.O, the Coach, and the owners. When they hired him (for decent money), but then hired someone less productive right behind for more money they were inviting disaster.

When McNabb made the comment about him and never apologized it was bad (whether he meant it personally or not). Now let's be real. All leagues, all sports celebrate the contribution of there individual player whether they when the games or not.

How many records has Michael Jordon broken during a game, but still lost the game. The team still recognized the contribution and the player usually stands up and says I don't care about breaking record (which is a lie). In this case, the Gaints did not give T.O. his just due again by taking away his right to personal recognotion for individual effort, whether the team won or not. It is the player who usually says, "without my team I would be nothing".