Owens: Laughing all the way to the bank

Money no object. Super Bowl here we come. Those are the noises coming out of Dallas this week as Jerry Jones digs ever deeper into his treasure chest to ensure the Cowboys are fully equipped for the new season - and then some.

It is time to Win Now, never mind tomorrow. And Terrell Owens is one of the main beneficiaries of the big Dallas cash windfall which is now at $97.8million, and counting.

Owens has just banked a new deal worth roughly $34million over the next four years; not huge amounts in today's NFL, but, at $8.5m a year, quite a chunk of change for a wide receiver who is already 34.

That's on top of the new contracts which Jones has also handed out in the last few months to running back Marion Barber (7 years, $45m) and linebacker Zach Thomas (4 years, $18.8m).

And the fact Texas Stadium is now home to Adam 'Pacman' Jones and his own little media circus, fresh from his one-year suspension and latest scrape with the law in Las Vegas.

This latter includes a situation where one person is still in hospital after being gunned down outside a nightclub where Jones and his entourage had already caused a ruckus, amid allegations he showered strippers in the nightclub with thousands of dollars (which he then demanded back - cue mass pandemonium).

So, nothing controversial there, then.

The fact the Cowboys were prepared to lock up Owens with that shiny new contract suggests they didn't feel there was much on offer in this year's Draft, and even less to be found on the free agent market.

And, with Terry Glenn nothing more than an asterisk on the sidelines (still struggling with the knee injury and two operations which kept him out for all but two games last season), refusing to accept a $½million pay-off, there is a lot riding in the gloved hands of 'T.O.'

For those who detect a hint of desperation in the Dallas air, you may not be far wrong. Last term, when push came to shove, it was the Cowboys' receivers who were most culpable for their end-of-season meltdown and early play-off exit to arch-rivals New York Giants.

Barren

So, when owner Jones looked around to see how he could best buy his way over that play-off hurdle, he found the landscape remarkably barren. Except for a 34-year-old wide receiver with a wild history in the final year of his Dallas contract.

To put it more simply, to avoid another 'where will he go next' drama all season, Jones decided his best option was to throw as much money in Owens' direction as possible to convince him to stay beyond next season - and prevent the campaign from deteriorating into yet another episode of the T.O. Show

With the way Jones, Owens and his agent Drew Rosenhaus staged a popcorn-induced mutual appreciation session, you'd think that all was sweetness and light in Cowboy country. Well, from the wide receiver's perspective, it certainly is.

Rosenhaus got him the kind of contract - with $13million guaranteed, no matter what he does - that most wideouts can only dream about.

But it could quickly become a nightmare for the team if Owens doesn't have the kind of season which propelled the Eagles to the Super Bowl during his only full year with them.

With doubts remaining over Tony Romo's ability to be the leader the offence needs, the onus will be firmly on 'the player' (as Bill Parcells used to refer to him) to find the way to the end zone early and often.

Which brings us to Pacman, and another Jones-inspired move which has all the stability of the San Andreas Fault.

There is little doubt the ex-Tennessee cornerback is one of the best shut-down defensive backs in the league when he has his mind on the game. But that hasn't been terribly often in his 3-year NFL career (one of them suspended) which includes a litany of off-field troubles (many of the nightclub variety).

And, with him currently "on probation" (able to practice with his new team-mates but not yet confirmed to play when the pre-season gets under way), it will take only one slight misdemeanour of the non-football kind to land him back in commissioner Roger Goodell's bad books. Which, for anyone of a literary persuasion, is not a healthy place to be.

Talk about walking a self-imposed tightrope. Jerry Jones has employed a few trapeze acts in his time (Deion 'Prime Time' Sanders being one of the most notable), but to have two such highly flammable characters in the club going into a pivotal season when it is pretty much win-at-all-costs does not bode hugely well for Dallas fans.

Unless the huge weight of expectation on the shoulders of T.O. and Pacman counter-balance each other like some kind of massive see-saw; the huge ego on offence offset by the heavy burden of responsibility on defence.

It all points towards there being quite a soap opera in Dallas this year. Perhaps that's an idea for a TV series.........