Unsigned T.O. blames image as 'cancer'

As a free agent receiver, Terrell Owens is wide open.

And as a 14-year NFL veteran, he doesn't think he resembles anything close to a Hail Mary.

In an interview with the NFL Network, Owens said the perception of him as a possible problem in the locker room has played a role in his failure to land with a team this offseason.

“

Owens If character was such an issue, I don't think Cincinnati would have brought me in.
” -- Terrell Owens, regarding his visit
with the Bengals

"I've heard a lot of the reasons why I'm not on a team right now," Owens told the NFL Network on Friday. "It's because people feel I've disrupted some teams, I'm a cancer -- I've heard all those things. They've said that for the last five, six years. The teams I've been on, if you ask in that locker room how I've been as a teammate and as a person, it's contradictory to what's been displayed out there."

Owens said a trip he made to the Cincinnati Bengals in March helped illustrate his value as a receiver.

"If character was such an issue, I don't think Cincinnati would have brought me in," he said.

Though Donovan McNabb has played down the notion, Owens reiterated he and the quarterback have discussed a reunion.

"He already knew his situation prior to being traded, so we talked about the idea of actually playing together," Owens said of McNabb, the former Eagles quarterback who was acquired by the Washington Redskins in April. "That was something I welcome with open arms, and he as well. If that was a situation to come about and that would happen, we know what we could do on the football field together."