Public enemy

Owens has made noise in Buffalo, but Patriots hope to quiet him on field in season opener

September 14, 2009|Bob Hohler, Globe Staff

“My name is T.O. You might know me as the most dominating force in football.’’- Terrell Owens, on his reality TV show

BUFFALO - Seriously, the most dominating force in football?

Bills Nation needs him to prove it. Fast.

Long-suffering fans of the playoff-estranged Bills have surrendered their desperate souls to Owens. They have gotten their popcorn ready to watch him indulge himself on reality TV with six-figure bling in Beverly Hills. They have lapped up his new cereal, “T.O.’s Low Fat Honey Nut Toasted Oats,’’ after he gushed about his “beautiful handsome face’’ on the box. They have donned T-shirts adorned with his signature paean to himself: “I Love Me Some Me.’’ They have swooned over him at the Anchor Bar, birthplace of the Buffalo-style chicken wing. Buffalo’s mayor even gave him the key to the city.

Fourteen years after the Bills last won a postseason game, they have bet their 2009 fortunes largely on Owens, a 35-year-old gridiron diva who has caught more touchdown passes (139) than any active NFL player but has yet to win a Super Bowl ring.

All T.O. needs to do to begin ending their drought is perform like the most dominating force in football tonight when the Bills open the season against the Patriots at Gillette Stadium.

Easy enough?

“When the lights come on, I’m ready to shine,’’ Owens said with his trademark grace last week at Buffalo’s fieldhouse in Orchard Park, N.Y.

The man who has crowned himself “the eighth wonder of the world’’ dared to envision the unfathomable. Preparing for his first trip to Foxborough since 1998, Owens embraced the possibility of leading Buffalo to victory over a Patriots team that has thwacked the Bills 11 straight times by an average margin of 20 1/2 points.

Heady stuff for a guy whose team is given as much chance of winning the next Super Bowl as a glazed doughnut.

“I’ve been given an opportunity by the Buffalo Bills to come in and try to create some energy, a buzz, and so far I’ve done that,’’ Owens said. “The other part of that is going out there and producing on the football field, and I plan to do that.’’

If he does it well enough, they might rename Niagara Falls after him. In the eyes of one western New York blogger, Terrell Eldorado Owens already is the region’s “gift from the gods.’’