Jason Taylor doesn't understand why Terrell Owens didn't make the Hall of Fame cut
Taylor thinks Owens is not getting a fair shake from the voters
By
Jared Dubin
•
1 min read
If you're reading this, then you already know that Terrell Owens was not one of the players selected as an inductee for the 2017 Pro Football Hall of Fame class. Despite stellar numbers that clearly paint him as one of the best wide receivers in NFL history, Owens can't seem to break through.
Count Jason Taylor, who will be inducted in August himself, among those who don't quite understand why Owens can't get in.
"I don't get it," Taylor said on PFT Live. "His numbers, football wise? Come on. He stacks up for sure. He can wreck your team on Sunday. His all-time numbers stand and show he's one of the top receivers and I think a Pro Football Hall of Famer. People have different agendas, people have different opinions. The people who have the votes are the ones who matter, and for whatever reason, they keep -- I don't want to say picking on T.O., but they keep beating him up a little bit for some of the off-the-field stuff, the distractions, he's left teams and all this stuff."
Owens finished his 15-year career with 1,078 catches for 15,934 yards and 153 touchdowns. Those figures rank eighth, second, and third, respectively, in NFL history. As Taylor mentioned, Owens was the subject of some off-field distractions, but that's true of several guys in the Hall already. And the fiction that teams couldn't wait to move on from T.O. during his career is just that -- fiction. On the merits, T.O. deserves to be in Canton.
Apparently, another 2017 inductee -- and someone that knows Owens quite well both on and off the field -- agrees with Taylor's assessment.
"I was talking to Jerry Jones a little bit about it and he said the same thing: T.O. was great in Dallas," Taylor said. "He understands T.O., he got T.O., and T.O. deserves to be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and he wasn't these things that some people are saying. It's a shame, I hate to see it, it's disappointing because his on-field play was so amazing. But sometimes the things we say or do off the field rub people wrong and unfortunately people hold that against him."
