The NFL season is a little more than four weeks away, so FanHouse is at Bills training camp today for Stop 4 and Mile 768 of Dan Graziano's five-camp, 1,100-mile road trip.
UPDATE, 6:05 p.m. -- The Bills just released this statement from coach Dick Jauron: "Terrell Owens will not participate in tonight's practice due to a sprained toe. I will address his status in more detail following tonight's practice session."
That session is scheduled to run from 7 PM to 9 PM ET, and I promise FanHouse will update you at that time.
PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- Showed up here this morning hoping to talk to Terrell Owens, but when I went out to the field to watch the morning walk-through, No. 81 wasn't there! And I wasn't the only one who noticed. The regulars pressed the Bills' PR staff for an explanation, and that proved difficult to get.
It was pointed out that Ashlee Palmer, Jermain McGhee and Marvin Philip were also absent, but nobody cared about those guys. Everybody was looking for the guy who was on VH1 on Monday night. Bills coach Dick Jauron, through the PR staff, would say only that it was an "excused absence" and that he would address the matter after tonight's practice, which is scheduled to run until 9:05 PM ET.
Well this, as you can well imagine, left a lot of people frustrated and threatened to set off a full day of rampant and breathless speculation about the whereabouts of one of the league's most mercurial players. We have since come
to learn that Owens was excused due to a toe injury he suffered on the way back from Sunday night's Hall of Fame game in Canton.Of course, the question remains: Why couldn't they tell us that in the first place? Is the toe injury an especially bad one? Was there some issue involving those other three guys that had something to do with the injury? Is there some additional reason they don't want to address yet?
See? There's your day of rampant speculation. It came through for you after all.
There is some Twitter evidence of something odd happening on the Bills' trip home from Canton. Owens' Twitter feed from 12:30 AM Monday reads, "On the bus 2 airport! Should b a quick flt back 2 Rochester!! Damn my toe is aching! :-/"
Twenty-nine minutes later, we got this: "Bout 2 take off! Sittin n middle seat b/c guys didn't sit n the same seat as they did coming. How rude!! Dn't wanna start any trouble!!"
Then at 1:44 AM came: "Just landed back n rochester! Middle seat wsn't tht bad 4 a short flt!"
Then tweets about how bad the food was and how he plans to be back in Canton someday for "an induction." Little evidence, if any, of anything terribly major going on. Yesterday's and this morning's tweets are all about last night's show.
Meanwhile, I'm still hoping the guy will come out and talk to me. At this point, it seems like he has little else to do. Come on, @terrellowens81, hook me up!
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