Former San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Terrell Owens was among the 15 modern-era finalists under consideration for the 2017 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. On Saturday, a vote took place on who this year's inductees would be. The result went in favor of running backs LaDainian Tomlinson and Terrell Davis, quarterback Kurt Warner, defensive end Jason Taylor, kicker Morten Andersen, safety Kenny Easley, and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. Of those seven names, only five were modern-era candidates.
For the second time in as many years, a disappointed Owens was left on the outside looking in. Apparently, the vote was not even that close for Owens, who did not even make it into the top 10 and was among the first five players eliminated, per Matt Maiocco of CSN Bay Area. That means that Owens, who ranks second only to Jerry Rice in all-time receiving yards, was beaten by a kicker and a Denver running back who dominated for just three seasons. Both were very good players at their respective positions, but the belief is that Owens had a more dominant career.
Maiocco was in the room with the voting committee on Saturday and presented an argument on why the prolific yet controversial receiver should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "The knock on him was that he was a bad teammate," Maiocco said Monday on 95.7 The Game. "That he tore apart the fabric of teams with his locker room antics, if you will, and that he drove a wedge between himself and the starting quarterbacks with the 49ers and the Cowboys and the Eagles. And there were a lot of opinions shared by the committee members after those people had talked to other players and coaches who don't support Terrell Owens' candidacy to be in the Hall of Fame."
On Saturday, Maiocco spoke on Owens' behalf to the committee. "I made the argument that he did make teams better," Maiocco said. "He played 189 games with the 49ers, Eagles, and Cowboys and his teams, while he was on the field, won 64-percent of their games and somebody else had a .640 winning percentage as a player. His name is Jerry Rice so I challenged these guys to tell me how did he make things worse? It's pure conjecture to say that he made teams worse."
"He didn't make it through the cut from 15 to 10, let alone the cut to the final five who then have to garner 80-percent of that vote to go in," Maiocco continued. "So, I can't say that he was very close at all to getting into the Hall of Fame on Saturday."
You can listen to the entire interview on 95.7 The Game.
