Trotter disputes T.O. claim in GQ
The Philadelphia Inquirer Blog - Eagles
Trotter disputes T.O. claim in GQ
Jeff McLane, Inquirer Staff Writer
Terrell Owens told GQ magazine that Jeremiah Trotter told him not to read the part of the Eagles-scripted letter the wide receiver was to read in 2005 that included an apology to Donovan McNabb.
Trotter called Owens' claim a "super lie" in a text message to The Inquirer on Wednesday night. He added, "I'm very upset with T.O."
The former Eagles linebacker also tweeted the following to Owens: "yo man y u lying to GQ Mag I never told u that call me ASAP!!!!!"
Below is an excerpt from the GQ article that will run in the February edition of the magazine that includes Owens' take on his infamous non-apology to McNabb after his much-publicized feud with the Eagles quarterback. The full story is here.
“To say I regret anything would be a slap in my grandmother’s face,” he says. “Are there some things I might do differently now? Sure.”
Such as?
“Some of the things in Philadelphia.” He sits back in his chair, seeming to catalog the events in his head: proclaiming that he didn’t care what fans thought of him, the locker-room tussle with his teammate Hugh Douglas, the various flare-ups with Donovan McNabb. But definitely not his attempt to renegotiate his $49 million, heavily back-loaded contract. “I was not paid competitively, and that was that,” he says. “The teams talk about how we should keep to our end of the bargain, but then they dump you at the point at which you’d actually start earning out, and that is supposed to be okay. Why don’t they need to keep up their end?”
How about the decision not to publicly apologize to McNabb for suggesting in an interview immediately after the Eagles lost the Super Bowl that the quarterback had “got tired” on the field? For a moment, he is silent. Could he actually be on the verge of admitting he made an error?
“Well, I probably should have done...,” he begins, rubbing his hand along the contours of his massive shaved dome. Then he stops himself. “No. No. Listen, I was in the locker room before the press conference, and my team captain, Jeremiah Trotter, read through that apology they wrote for me. He got to the bottom part, the part where it had the stuff about Donovan, and he did this.” Owens snatches a piece of paper from the table and rips off the bottom three inches. “This is the team leader we’re talking about; he told me not to do it.”
His only real mistake, Owens insists, was “timing. I might not have said or done things at exactly the right moment” (though it’s hard to imagine the right time to publicly dis your QB). He concedes, after some prodding, that he lacks an essential social skill that has cost him. “I am not,” he says, “a tactful person.”
Dallas paid him and he still split their lockerroom and caused Parcells to leave when they were on the verge of a SB.— tommy_the_k
Comment removed.- Large mouth, small brain... vintage T.O.— dasher
- 1) his agent and the union told him not to sign the contract...so quit blaming it on anyone else 2) there is NO tape anywhere of McNabb barfing 3) we are in the SB and oh so close.....the idiot comes back and plays agianst doctors orders and plays well....and the real issue is ....that the penny pinching management refused to pay him.....and we subtracted from our SB roster to please Joe.....and then it went down hill from there due to the idiots lack of brains and tack........(footnote....it appears management has learned nothing from that incident...)— nuggett
- Throwing up was not the problem. The problem in that superbowl was the lack of urgency at the end of the game. Walking to the line of scrimmage? Taking too much time in the huddle? Mcnabb deserves some of the blame but his head coach deserves the majority of it. the coaches on the patriots sideline we're laughing wondering if the eagles knew how much time was left in the game. And yet the fat man is still here. It's a joke.— sickoflosing
- Does anyone really care about this??— jcpaul
- I still don't see why people cared that McNabb threw up if in fact he did so during the SB? When I was in the Marine Corps we use to tell guys that if during PT you don't throw up than your not putting out. If McNabb did get sick he followed that up with a TD pass so really who cares? It just shows how much of an idiot T.O. is/was.— ceez0341
- in hindsight, we were way too overprotective of donovan. both the organization and the fans. he was the problem all along. mommas boy— Ryan
- The net is the "great team" was ripe for splitting. So much so a moron like TO made it happen easily. Now think about the current potentially great team. Now there are issues because the front office actually paid some people, Vick,Young, Namdi, R. Brown, S. Smith and look what happened. Asante has a hissy fit. DJax has a hissy fit. Who knows who else ? Doesn't the HC and his staff take any responsibility for team chemistry ? And maybe is they drafted better, you would not need to over pay washed up "stars" ? Vick, Namdi glory days behind them. Focus on the now. The real measure of a head coach and how good they are is putting together offense, defense and special teams that peak together. Not show a weakness every year on one of the three areas of a true football team.
As far as the Ried coaching tree. One has been successful. Ravens Harbaugh. Chilly, MM, LF are jokes as HCs.— oldBird - Really? Another TO article? "The local press seems to think that we'd save everyone the time and trouble if we just went out and shot ourselves." Get the point TO?— Philly Jinx
- I wouldn't blame Trotter if he did rip off the McNabb apology. Could you imagine what kind of dribble the Eagle PR wanted T.O. to spew out of his mouth about McNabb? An apology? Really? Man-up! I am still waiting for my apologies from the Eagles and McNabb.— gribbs
- If anyone has been paying attention to football outside of Philly, they would know that TO just agreed to be a player/owner for the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League. This is just another pathetic attempt by this mentally ill individual to drum up interest towards himself for purely selfish reasons. I believe that this story about Trotter to be comnpletely fabricated nonsense just like all the other lies he has ranted on about for most of his public life; Owens has, is, and always will be a 5 alarm loser with the mentality of a spoiled 5 year old.— CTL
- Raise your hand if you believe T.O's depiction of what happened that day? Exactly! He is as emotionally balanced as Dennis Rodman. He was as wrong then, principally, as he is now. The notion of outperforming a contract does not exist. He couldn't wait to get out of SF, then did not want to be in Baltimore for those 5 seconds, and after some success here he was ready to parlay it into something different than what he signed on for. Not that we all don't get where he was coming from - just a little p.o.'d that I can't do that we can't do that in our jobs! He is irrelevant now...so, bye-bye!— roddieb
- Comment removed.
- McNabb was the reason the Eagles went to the playoffs and won. He might not be a Super Bowl quareterback but at least under McNabb we were relevant unlike this joke of a year. What has Vick done to become so beloved? Choked in his only playoff game for us?— TYMcNabb
