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Owens Suspended for rest of 2005 Season
By Jeremy Harness November 7, 2005 |
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PHILADELPHIA--The Philadelphia Eagles who have a scheduled Monday Night game with the Dallas Cowboys tonight, have indefinitely suspended Terrell Owens for the rest of the season. Owens suspended for four games for behavior detrimental to the team as announced by Eagles Head Coach Andy Reid at a Monday press conference and for the remaining four games after that, Owens will not be allowed to join the team and will be a free agent after the completion of the Eagles season. Reid made it clear that the Eagles will part ways with Owens and Reid mentioned that Owens has filed a grievance with the players union. Owens was involved in a fistfight last week with defensive back Hugh Douglas after practice in the Eagles dressing room. Douglas came into the locker rooms saying, "we got some people in here faking injuries" and Owens and Douglas began exchanging words and each took two punches from each other before team mates pulled the two apart. After that Owens and Brian Westbrooks, the Eagles running back traded words and began wrestling each other when again teammates had to separate those two. Owens said to his team then, "anyone else want a piece of me." Shortly after that on Friday, Owens went on Miami radio where he does a weekly show and said that the Eagles showed no class, that the Eagles did not recognize Owens for his 100th career touchdown catch, and "that if it had been somebody else they would have popped fireworks all over the stadium." Coach Reid said Monday, "(Owens) will not be returning to play for the team even after the conclusion of that suspension." The NFL players union had been notified that the grievance would be put forward. Reid said the suspension was in large part of a number of situations that accumulated over a long period. Owens was warned repeatedly, according to Reid, about his actions, which included fighting verbally with his teammates, publicly blasting quarterback Donovan McNabb. Some of the other actions that Owens was warned about included working out on separate practice fields from his teammates, screaming and yelling at Reid. Owens was also warned about his publicly referring to the Eagles for not re-negotiating his contract, and his negative remarks made on his radio show about the Eagles management. Reid said he warned Owens over a long period of time and even as recently as the brawl last week in practice that Owens had been given every opportunity to fix the problems and that Owens was warned repeatedly by Reid. Reid added that football is a team sport and he expected the team to play together to support each other and said the club took a step forward last Sunday in the effort to try to win a ball game which they lost and that Reid expected the team to improve for the remainder of the season. Jeremy Harness is covering Monday Night Football every week and the Cowboys and Eagles match up Monday November 14th. Read Jeremy's prediction next Monday. |
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