IRVING, Texas -- Terrell Owens really likes being part of the Dallas Cowboys except for one thing: the snitch.
Owens remains upset that someone within the organization has been airing his dirty laundry. It started with a preseason report about him being late to work and continued with the story about a problem that causes him to fall asleep in meetings.
Those things happened earlier this season, but the bitterness lingers. Owens told ESPN in an interview that aired Sunday that he was "faking it" in practice because he was so frustrated, and then he explained himself much further in a roughly half-hour interview in front of his locker Wednesday.
Describing his tumultuous early season, which also included a hamstring injury in training camp and a broken hand that led to an "accidental overdose" on painkillers, Owens said: "I just felt like I was out there, just out there. I didn't feel like I was a part of the team."
"One of the coaches came to me after one game and I just told him I felt alone in this locker room. That's how I felt at that time. It was weighing a lot on my mind during the course of the game. My mind really wasn't clear to play football," he said.
Now?
"I'm tons better," he said.
T.O.'s season has followed the same arc as the team's record. He was mediocre early but then began putting up big numbers when Tony Romo replaced Drew Bledsoe at quarterback, a move that led to a 5-1 streak. Dallas is 8-5 and leading the NFC East going into a game at Atlanta on Saturday night.
"Winning cures a lot of things," Owens said.
Despite all that's happened, Owens said he is happy enough that he could envision finishing his career with the Cowboys.
"Oh, yeah, I definitely would," he said. "Unless somebody knows something I don't know. ... I mean, I don't see any reason not to, you know what I mean?"
Well, there is that snitch still lurking.
"Yeah, that's my main part of frustration," he said. "It's like, you want to be part of this team and feel part of it, but it's hard to do that when you feel like there are guys you feel like you don't trust. It's just not happening."
What bugs Owens the most about the snitching is that he doesn't think it is so bad to be late or fall asleep in a meeting.
"Those are like petty things, you know what I mean?" he said. "My point is, everybody does it. But it's when I do it, it's a big deal. ... Enough is enough, you know what I mean? It gets to a point where it's like, 'OK, when does it stop?'"
Although T.O. has a good idea of who is snitching -- "This is not a situation where someone is hiding out in the bushes," he said -- he won't confront the suspect until "the time is right."
Why not? Especially if it bothers him so much that he told a national TV audience he was tempted to slack off in practice or a game.
"It wouldn't be nothing but a big distraction," he said. "I just let it be. ... At this point, it's not something to really address. Like I said, I kind of have my hunches. But it's nothing that I'm really dwelling on right now. Just letting it go, trying to play football. That's it."
Owens leads the Cowboys with 72 catches for 971 yards and nine touchdowns. With three games left, he's easily within reach of a seventh 1,000-yard season, could approach his career best of 100 receptions and is one TD shy of most in the NFL. (No wonder his Web site sent e-mails this week asking fans to vote Owens into Pro Bowl, even providing a link to the ballot.)
His stats took a bit of a hit in a 42-17 loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.
Owens caught only three passes for 56 yards, his fewest in both categories since Romo took over as the starting quarterback. He didn't have a catch in the first half, reminiscent of when Bledsoe was the starter.
"I feel like I could be a little bit more involved," Owens said. "But, you know, I don't call the plays. I just go with the plays that are called."
Owens said it would be pointless to lobby the coaches for more passes -- even though he also made it clear he blames them for the routes being chosen, not the decisions Romo is making where to throw it.
Then again, coaches might not want more plays for No. 81 because he leads the league in dropped passes.
"I'm not Superman," he said. "I'm human. Michael Jordan doesn't make every shot. Jerry [Rice] hasn't caught every pass. Tiger [Woods] doesn't make every putt. I understand the expectations of me. People want me to catch every ball. The likelihood of that happening is not going to be great. I understand that."
While discussing the drops, Owens brought up the snitch again, saying he's lacked focus sometimes because he "was consumed by a lot of things going on here."
Another issue Owens raised during his ESPN interview was that coach Bill Parcells never spoke to him directly about his night in the hospital, which included a police report saying T.O. was depressed and attempted suicide.
"It didn't hurt my feelings," Owens said. "I found it odd."
Parcells refuses to get into discussions about things related to Owens. He dismissed questions about the ESPN interview by saying he didn't see it and went into a long discourse about the various things that go into drops when that subject came up.
As for Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, he said the "faking it" quote was taken out of context because "he said just the opposite every other word."
"They took the parts where he was saying the positive things and are going to do that at a later time and used the negative things for the first time because that didn't fit what they wanted to do at that time," Jones said.
