Terrell's Buffalo: A Wing And A Player

More people than you might think are able to pry their cold fingers from their snow shovels in Buffalo and type out harsh e-mails to sportswriters in other cities who dare suggest their 40-watt city is an odd place for the halogen spotlight that is Terrell Owens to play football.

And it pains me to report that some of them -- this is almost too much to bear -- say disparaging things about Philadelphia in the process. Sad, but true. After I wrote a column this week wondering how the pairing of Buffalo and Owens could possibly last, many Buffaloans...Buffalonians?...Buffalites? Well, many residents of Buffalo took exception. They feel that stories mentioning snowfall in Buffalo, for instance, are a cliche -- even though they have been shoveling that cliche off their sidewalks for the last four months.

Fair enough. Maybe they enjoyed it more when Jim Reeves of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote a column of his own that looked at the situation from the other side. I had wondered how Owens would adjust to Buffalo, where everyone goes down to the hotel on Friday to see who rented the room. Reeves wondered how Buffalo -- solid, hard-working, wing-eating, beer-drinking Buffalo -- would possibly adjust to Owens, who isn't their kind of bird, whether with hot sauce or not.

You can decide for yourself which is the better approach. As for Buffalo, we can just let them enjoy that brief, exciting period of time when Terrell comes to town -- before he decides to burn it down. The Buffalo News ran a story today that could have carried the headline, "Hey, Ma. We're on SportsCenter." They're very excited up there. Yes, we remember that feeling well.