Memories of Terrell Owens leaving Eagles camp to work out in his driveway haven’t faded 20 years later

One of the most electric plays in the history of Lincoln Financial Field came — of all things — during a preseason game.

Terrell Owens’ first snap in an Eagles uniform — the very first snap of the Aug. 20, 2004, preseason game vs. the Baltimore Ravens — went for an 81-yard touchdown reception.

It really was an incredible moment — a play that meant both nothing and everything at the same time.

The Eagles had been on the doorstep of the Super Bowl three years in a row — 2001, 2002, and 2003. Each year, they fell short.

Their defense was strong and their offense above average with Donovan McNabb at quarterback and Brian Westbrook in the backfield behind a good offensive line.

Just about all the parts were there — except one.

The Eagles desperately needed a game-changing wide receiver. It was a hole they failed to address for years. But then, in the 2004 offseason, an opportunity came along that was so good and so obvious, not even the stubborn front office could ignore it.

Owens wanted out of San Francisco. This was it. This was the Eagles’ chance — a scenario that fans could only fantasize about. Courts had to intervene — no joke — but the Eagles got their guy.

“We are obviously extremely excited by being able to acquire one of the top football players in America,” Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said then.

“It’s a nice addition to a good football team,” coach Andy Reid said.

Said Owens: “This is a new beginning for me. It’s a fresh start. I have a clean rap sheet right now, so to speak.”

That was March 16, 2004, at the NovaCare Complex. Seventeen months later, the tone had changed dramatically.

T.O. was outside his house in Moorestown, asking a pack of reporters if they wanted any pizza.

In a way that was so completely different from the year before when the preseason touchdown bomb sent the Linc into a frenzy, the Terrell Owens situation had exploded. This time, it wasn’t good.

T.O. had gotten kicked out of training camp for a week for disciplinary reasons. A few hours later, he was in his driveway staging a defiant workout.

Both sides — T.O. and the Eagles front office — had been dug in for months.

T.O. wanted more money. The Eagles refused to budge. They never redid contracts — not for anyone.

Owens might not have cursed at Reid, but he did go after someone else on the coaching staff.

“I will say this, he was compliant between the lines when we went out to the field in Allentown, but completely noncompliant as we went to meetings,” former Eagles offensive coordinator Brad Childress told unCovering the Birds.

Childress was caught in the crossfire. Reid had to do something. He couldn’t have a player mouthing off to one of his assistants.

So he told Owens to leave Lehigh University. And that’s how a few dozen reporters and I ended up in T.O’s driveway on Aug. 10, 2005, watching him do sit-ups with his shirt off and a camouflage hat on backward.

Whenever the opportunity comes along to retell parts of the T.O. saga, it’s hard to resist. It’s got everything you’d want in a juicy story — hope, surprises, complex characters, egos, defiance, betrayal, and ultimately, disappointment.

» READ MORE: Terrell Owens blew up Eagles training camp 20 years ago. Here are the relevant lessons from that chaos.

With this 20th anniversary upon us, I reached out to Childress.

“It’s a landmark, really, not one that I, you know, celebrate on my calendar,” Childress said with a chuckle.

Childress left the college ranks for Reid’s first staff with the Eagles. He and Reid completely turned the Eagles’ trajectory around and the culture, too. But by August 2005, Owens’ showdown with the front office began fracturing all of that.

Childress had a front-row seat.

“First of all, I can’t say enough great things about Terrell,” Childress said. “When he showed up for us, there was a big ‘Oh, I got it’ factor that really elevated us and I think offensively. So from that standpoint, he gave that, and it was great. And obviously this was after the Super Bowl that he had a great Super Bowl in. And just like most things, people want more money.”

Owens caught 14 touchdown passes in his first 12 games of the season. The 14 touchdowns are still a single-season franchise record. Then, Week 14 against the Dallas Cowboys.

The Eagles couldn’t have nice things. They finally got their bona fide wide receiver who was lighting up the league only to see him get hurt at the most crucial time of the year.

T.O.’s ankle sprain was so bad he needed surgery. At first, the Eagles ruled him out for the rest of the season. Somehow, he made it back for the Super Bowl.

T.O.’s nine receptions for 122 yards against the New England Patriots weren’t enough. The Eagles lost, 24-21, but the narrative for the offseason was set.

T.O. was due to make $4.5 million the next season in 2005. He wanted top-10 wide receiver money. That wasn’t top-10 wide receiver money.

He fired his agent and joined forces with the bold, brash Drew Rosenhaus.

Bob Brookover, who like me was in the driveway where it happened when he was the lead Eagles reporter for The Inquirer, remembered how that changed everything.

“Drew had made it clear: We want a new contract from the second he became the [agent], [Owens has] outplayed this contract, that was a terrible contract he got. They kept saying he’s going to come to training camp. Drew hinted, [Owens] could be disruptive in training camp. And he basically got to training camp and just didn’t say anything.”

Back in those days, the Eagles packed up shop and moved their whole operation to Lehigh University for two weeks. Fans flocked to the mountaintop campus to watch two-a-day practices in the blazing July and August heat.

Every day, players were scheduled to sign autographs. When T.O. blew off his session, Reid was at his limit.

Childress said that might have been the straw that broke the coach’s back.

“My remembrance is, he practiced, walked off the field, compliant,” Childress said.

“I think specifically, there was that on the field that day, and we went over to a big meeting room, and I do the offensive install, and Andy happened to be sitting all the way in the back of the room. So he sat behind Terrell, who was in the back row. [Owens] never opened his playbook.

“Now I will say this: He was smart enough not to have to open his playbook, but he was belligerent enough that was his defiance, or, you know, show of force or what have you.

“And every night that I did an install, he was in the back row and I’d walk out the back, and I’d say, ‘What’s up, Terrell?’ And this night, he jumps out of his seat and he goes, ‘I don’t talk to you if you don’t talk to me. You understand?’ I go, ‘Excuse me?’ And he goes, ‘You don’t talk to me. I’m not talking to you.’ I go, ‘Terrell, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.’

“And we weren’t going to come to blows, but there was enough players around that saw he was agitated. I said, ‘Listen, I’m always going to give somebody a civil greeting. Hey, what’s up? What’s going on? How you doing?’ And he goes, ‘No, no, no, you’re antagonizing me. You’re trying to antagonize me.’ I said, ‘That’s the last thing I’m trying to do. I’m just giving you a simple exchange of greetings on my way out the door.’ That was enough to send Andy where he needed to go.”

And off went T.O, 75 miles back home to Moorestown.

In real time, as reporters were piecing together parts of the story, one account that gained steam was that T.O. cursed out Reid.

According to Childress, that didn’t happen. T.O. didn’t curse out anyone. Not Reid, not him.

“I believe somebody from Comcast noticed T.O. leaving from his dorm and, like, heading out, and then just it spread like wildfire after that. And I got a call from the office saying, ‘What’s going on with T.O.?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, special teams practice. He wouldn’t be at special teams practice.’ ‘No, they’re the reporting that he’s left camp.’”

Brookover then had to jump on the story. He headed to T.O.’s house in Moorestown.

That’s where he and I linked up to witness T.O. hold court in his driveway, shirtless, camouflage hat on backward, doing crunches on a steel sit-up bench while taking questions from reporters, TV helicopters flying overhead.

Childress watched from afar.

“You couldn’t unsee it, you know, if you got back to your room for the 11 o’clock news. It was a late story. The guy’s doing sit-ups in the driveway. I don’t know if he was going into the Marine Corps or what he was doing, but perfect weather for it,” Childress mused.

Owens recalled on Shannon Sharpe’s podcast in 2021: “Coach Reid basically said, ‘Go home … keep yourself in shape.’”

Said Childress: “I can see Andy saying that. Perfect, yeah.”

By coincidence, Childress, the target of T.O.’s ire, was the first person in the media tent the next morning. He had to address the situation — not Reid.

“If a daily ‘How you doing, Terrell’ is antagonistic or spiteful, then I must be on the wrong planet,” Childress told reporters.

T.O. was back at training camp the following week. He and the Eagles actually got off to a good start in 2005. He had three 100-yard games. The Eagles opened 3-1. But gradually, the wheels fell off.

Injuries piled up among starters, including McNabb. And T.O. continued to give off bad vibes, needling the team through the media, especially McNabb.

After one too many passive-aggressive digs, the Eagles suspended T.O. for the rest of the season. This was in the first week of November 2005.

T.O. apologized for his actions in a news conference and tried to get back on the team, but the Eagles didn’t want him around.

Once again, T.O. was at the center of an unprecedented arbitration case. This time, unlike the ruling that cleared the way for him to join the Eagles a year earlier, he lost.

Owens didn’t play the final nine games of the 2005 season. The Eagles lost seven of them.

“I just know it ended sourly. I don’t know if we were 6-10 or what we were that year, but it was disappointing to say the least,” said Childress, who got the Minnesota Vikings head coaching job after the season.

The Eagles had gotten so close. By the time they parted ways with T.O., it felt like everything they had built and worked toward had broken down.

Time passes. Relationships heal — at least some of them do.

Last week at Kansas City Chiefs training camp, there was Reid near midfield in his red and white cap, red shirt, and black shorts. Standing next to him in a black shirt and shorts was none other than the guy he booted from camp 20 years ago.

Asked if he invited Owens, now a Hall of Famer, to practice, Reid told reporters he did.

“It’s great to have him,” Reid told reporters. “I’ve watched him grow up. He’s a dad now. His son’s with the 49ers doing a nice job. He’s got a daughter that’s a heck of a volleyball player. Just watching people grow I think is a great position I’m in to see that. He’s got a good heart. T.O.’s got a good heart.”