The Jets have made it clear this offseason that they are interested in two things when it comes to player acquisitions.
They like players with household names (Jason Taylor, LaDainian Tomlinson) even if they may be over the hill and they like players with talent (Antonio Cromartie, Santonio Holmes) even if they may have serious character flaws. That's why it is impossible to totally disregard Tuesday's report that the Jets have expressed some interest in Terrell Owens.
Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that the team has contacted T.O.'s agent Drew Rosenhaus and that they've had internal discussions about bringing the veteran wide receiver to training camp. This isn't a burning interest, Schefter puts the chances that the Jets sign him at 20 percent, but there certainly isn't anything about the current Jets regime that makes you think they'd be unwilling to make a move as bold and risky as this one.
With Santonio Holmes suspended for the first four weeks of the season, the Jets could use another receiver to threaten defenses in the early going. Owens probably isn't a number one receiver anymore but he'd still be awfully dangerous in a set with Braylon Edwards, Jerricho Cotchery and Dustin Keller. Defenses can only stop so many people on any one play and it has to be tempting to the Jets to think of the mismatches such formations could create.
The problem is that old dogs don't learn new tricks. Owens isn't going to be happy as a third, fourth or fifth option and there's no way that he would be more than that on a well-run Jets offense. There may already be issues in terms of distributing touches on this offense, throwing Owens into the mix would only guarantee that the whole thing explodes at some point. And, on top of all that, you don't need Owens throwing his garbage into Mark Sanchez's ear. He's still growing as a quarterback, Owens would retard that growth.
We're not naive, we get that teams would sign the Antichrist if he could help them win the Super Bowl. Looking at the balance of the above, though, it's hard to see where you wind up with a better shot of taking home that trophy. We're talking about a fourth receiver and that's not going to be the difference when all is said and done.
HBO would probably love it for "Hard Knocks" ratings assistance and Joe Namath has already weighed in with a thumbs up but they don't have much actual stake in how the Jets do this season.
The guys who do should nip this in the bud.
Sports
Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
