By:  StlouisramsX

Well, that was one hell of a short roller coaster ride, wasn’t it?  Let’s re-examine the time-line, shall we?

On Saturday the 24th, ESPN’s Chris Mortenson broke the story that the Rams were in serious pursuit of Terrell Owens, which in turn sparked a frenzy of tweets across the internet.

Later that day a report came out indicating that The St. Louis Rams have intensified discussions in hopes of signing free agent Terrell Owens, according to sources close to the player and team. The Cincinnati Bengals, as reported by ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter, were also engaged in talks with Owens.   Since the Bengals signed free-agent receiver Antonio Bryant during the offseason he had been struggling.  According to a team source, that has motivated the Bengals to take another look at Owens as well.

One source said the Rams had gotten very aggressive in their pursuit of Owens and it’s possible that Owens will sign with the Rams or Bengals within the next 48 to 72 hours.  Twitter’s bandwith exceeded max capacity multiple times.

Not to be outdone in the Tweetiverse,  Brian Stull chimed in indicating the story was “overblown”.

Oh now it’s ON!

Chris Mortenson later retaliated with his own version of the story from his own sources debunking the theory that the story was overblown by quoting an actual source.  Said Mort, “One thing the Rams wanted to know from TO before they proceeded:  Would he seriously consider them even with their lack of contender status?”  Answer:  “Yes”.

Mort later took the initiative to stay on top of this story by coming out with an interview with Cliff Saunders over at 101ESPN.com in which he was standing firm on his story

Well, uh, okay then.  So it’s true.

Brian Stull later blogged that while the rumors were indeed true, there are a myriad of reasons why it would be a bad decision.  Stully laid it down in “Pro and Con” format in which there were 4 pros and 10 cons.   So the debate ensued across the internet.  Players were coming out in favor of the decision on Twitter, though most of them were defensive players.   Said Chris Long about the premise of T.O. joining the Rams, “A guy like that, he’s still got some good years left in him,” Long told FOXSports.com.  “He certainly can make plays. You can’t listen to everything the media says. I think if coaches felt he fit, we’d welcome him.

It was however, blatantly obvious why Twitter athletes Brandon Gibson, Keenan Burton and Donnie Avery remained silent throughout all of this.  I mean, who wants to come out either way on this?  It’s was a lose/lose situation for them if I ever saw one.  Nobody wants to face the potential of losing their spot to a proven west coast offense wide receiver like Owens, and then again, nobody wants to come out and say as much knowing that they might have to share a sideline space with him.   Better just to keep it on the down-low.

To tell you the truth, I was getting pretty stoked, and even took the initiative to put him on the field before he even inked a deal.

Suffice it to say, that wasn’t met with the most positive feedback.   Ah, shaddap – I was just having fun.

Bernie Miklaz didn’t think the idea of  T.O. on the Rams was funny at all, as he came out and laid waste to the front office while simultaneously calling them out for going directly against the philosophy they initially proclaimed would be used for building the team.

In the end though, after all the smoke cleared, it came down to a stance that the Rams’ front office took that actually has me pretty proud of them.  Despite my feelings on the subject of Terrell Owens, I was rather impressed that the Rams decided they would not be played in the circus that is Owens when it was later discovered that the Rams were possibly being leveraged to intensify the interest of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Once this came to light, the Rams’ brass met together on Monday morning and decided to withdraw their offer.  Said General Manager Billy Devaney, “It’s not like we’re gnashing our teeth saying, ‘If we don’t have T.O., we’re screwed.’ Not even close.”   The Rams are indeed comfortable enough with their receiving corps to go on without Owens, but there is still that little voice in the back of his mind saying, “But, but, can they all stay healthy all year?”   Which was likely the primary reason for courting Owens to begin with.

All much ado about nothing in the end though apparently, but it did give us all a couple of days to discuss the Rams in an otherwise uneventful time of the season.  So for that, we thank you Terrell Owens.   Now go on and get outta here.  Nobody wanted you anyway.