The T.O. Case, etc. at 12:00 PM

As a rabid Eagles fan, I felt I had to address this. For those of you not familiar with the situation, Eagles wide receiver Terrell Owens is currently holding out for a new contract with the team. The problem with this is that the Eagles, since head coach/general manager Andy Reid has been with the team, do not restructure contracts. For anyone.

So here we are. T.O. is holding out, and the Eagles won't give him a new contract. The only problem I see here is with Owens. This is not coming from me as a fan, saying, "Why does this guy need more money? He's a millionaire and gets paid to do something fun!" (although I certainly do think that). No, this is purely from a business standpoint. T.O. is only hurting himself. There've been rumblings that he's willing to sit out the entire season if he doesn't get a new contract. If he does so, what does he gain? He signed a 7-year, $49 million contract last year. I will guarantee you right now that there is no way the Eagles offer him a new contract. None. In Philly, you play Andy's way, or you don't play. It's that simple. (This is not a bad thing, by the way. People that play for the Eagles love it. There are players who have left via free agency for more money, then come back after a year for less money--just to play for Andy Reid and the Eagles.)

So let's say he sits out the season. The Eagles play without him and the season's over. Then what? They're going to suddenly realize that they need him and come crawling back? No way. So either he comes back to the team, where he's probably damaged his reputation irreparably among his teammates, or he continues to hold out, or he goes somewhere else. By the way, if he does hold out, the Eagles don't have to pay him. So he loses a year of playing time and a year's salary. That's the way to build up your value. (And if you need money to "feed your family", you can't afford to sit out a year. I hate when athletes say stupid things like that, but that's a topic for another day.) If he tries to go somewhere else, does he think that another team is going to pay him more than the Eagles are paying him now, after sitting out a year and getting into a contract dispute one year after signing the contract? Any team would be insane to do that, and no team would. He'd get signed, sure, but he'd be losing money, which would defeat the original purpose of sitting out. If you're trying to make a point, that's an expensive point to make. So I can't begin to imagine what's going through his head.

I'm not trying to rip T.O. here. He's a great player, and I loved watching him play last year. All this aside, he seems like a genuinely nice guy. I just don't understand the logic. Of course, some credit has to go to his new agent, Drew Rosenhaus. That guy's a pimple on the butt of the NFL if there ever was one. He encourages clients to sit out so that he can play hardball with the teams. Sitting out does no one any good at all.

In other news, we're at a standstill right now on the Weight Watchers front. We were all ready to start, and then the wife got strep throat. So she doesn't want to start a diet while feeling like crap, which I can completely understand. So to help things out, I went and got some ice cream last night. I figure since I probably have a two week reprieve, I might as well take advantage of it, right? Hmmm...steak and ribs sounds good for dinner tomorrow night.

We took Luke in the other day for his four month appointment and found out that he's gained two ounces in the last two months. He's right on track with everything else, and he's at or ahead where he should be as far as learning goes, but he's just a skinny kid. I told my mom, and she told me that my brother was 12 pounds at six months old (Luke is 10.5 at 4 months old), so I'm not too worried about it. If he gets my brother's body type instead of mine, that won't be a bad thing (my brother is all muscle). We'll see though. He may just grow into it.

Joe Perry, the guitarist from Aerosmith, released a solo album this week, and of course I now possess it. So I'll be posting a review of the album shortly. I'll be off work tomorrow, so maybe I'll even post it then. Hello three-day weekend. I have missed you so.

Song of the day: "Holiday", by Green Day. I'm starting to think I should check out more songs from this album. I'm not convinced yet from the singles, but I like this one the most so far I think. Also, whenever there's an album like this that I'm not sure about, I like to check out the Amazon.com reviews to see who listens to it (this is more just for fun than to actually evaluate how much of a look I'll give an album). Let's check out this review, from "Dino":

this cd is more than a punk rock cd its a gate way to new haravins for green day i recomed the song st jimmy but yet i recoumend the hole cd

gggrrreeeeen dddaaay rrrrroooooooocckkkkkssssssss

I don't know what a haravin is, but it can't be bad.