How come Terrell Owens and the Philadelphia Eagles could not stick together? It's the question Eagles fans still wonder about even 16 years later.
Speaking with Jon Marks and his former player Ike Reese on Thursday's 94WIP Marks & Reese Show, former Eagles CEO Joe Banner explained what happened with Terrell Owens in 2005.
"I understand that this is controversial," Banner explained. "I certainly wish we would have been able to keep him on the team in a way that wasn't divisive or damaging to the team. To this day there's been no player—and that includes all the Peyton Manning's and Tom Brady's of the world—who have signed a long-term deal that was re-done after one year. And the fact of the matter is, despite the way it was portrayed by some, we paid T.O. a fair market deal. At that time the top wide receiver in the league was making seven a half, eight million dollars per year and his deal was just under seven and a half million dollars per year.
"So from our perspective, the message that we would be sending and the risk to other players—and we had a number of players on the team that were great players, that could have come in at any moment and demanded new contracts. And even though the public didn't really see a lot of divineness until the contract situation became public, there were things in 2004 that were concerning to us. They hadn't blown up as the major controversies. We did know, obviously, he had a history of being a little bit divisive and we had seen some things in 2004 that, although we overcame them, were concerning to us in terms of the future and the risk of how it may affect the team and the locker room.
"I was concerned about the precedent it would create after one year, which was a fair-market deal. People don't remember, or even ever even knew, the three year contract he signed with Dallas paid him over the next three years the exact same amount of money he was due over the next three years with Philadelphia. So he became a free-agent, 31 teams got to bid on him, and none of them paid him anymore than we were going to pay him. He obviously converted some non guaranteed to guaranteed money by going to Dallas, but we probably would have been willing to do that if that was the only issue. The way he or his agents had presented that to us it was a lot more complicated. They really wanted to rip up the deal and start from scratch."
Banner was joining the show primarily to talk about Andy Reid, a man who he hired to be the Eagles' coach. Reid will be looking for his first Super Bowl victory on Sunday with the Chiefs.
Banner was asked about the Eagles' decision to draft Donovan McNabb with the No. 2 overall pick in 1999.
"The decision was totally driven by Andy," Banner said. "First of all, we all agree we were going to draft a quarterback."
Banner explained the team was always going to draft a QB and never considered running back Ricky Williams, the fan favorite at the time. Banner added the team had RB Edgerrin James ranked ahead of Williams.
"There was a difference in grading the quarterbacks as to who was number one," Banner explained. "Andy had Donovan clearly, as did a few other people. Everybody agreed that since Andy was an offensive mind, he was the head coach, we wanted him really invested in the success of the pick. Everybody liked Donovan, they just didn't necessarily all have him first. So everybody agreed that if he really felt that strongly than Donovan was the number one guy and he was really risking his future on that recommendation, that we should all kind of step back and trust his advice. That pick would have been whoever Andy had rated first."
You can listen to the full interview below.
