15 Finalists + 3

[Rupert Patrick]

I know they're going to make Owens wait a while to punish him for his petulance, but if he's not a first-ballot Hall of Famer then I don't know who is. He checks all the boxes -- he was really good early, stayed really good to a ripe old age, was elite for many years, #2 all-time receiving yards, #3 all-time receiving TDs, but can't be accused of being a compiler. Then there's the category they really don't care about but should -- put up great numbers with multiple QBs of varying quality and levels of experience.

I never used to think of the other Terrell as being Hall of Fame worthy, but Reaser has sold me on that one.

I'm predicting Favre, Harrison, Pace, and Lynch, and I'd like to see Davis as the last one.

Oh, I think Owens went way beyond petulant, Jeremy. IMHO his locker room antics blew teams apart, making him a net detriment and unworthy of Canton altogether. There are lots of divas, especially at WR, but TO was in a class by himself, the ultimate anti-team player.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Even after the stats he produced in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Dallas, all three teams came to the conclusion they would be better off without him than with him. After he left San Francisco, he gave a magazine interview in which he alluded that his QB might have been gay, which I'm sure only undermined the 49ers. In the case of the Eagles (where I admit, he did everything he could to help them in the Super Bowl against New England with an injured ankle but the team came up short), they chose to suspend him and deactivate him in the middle of the following season after he badmouthed Donovan McNabb and was being a severe pain in the posterior in the midst of a contract dispute. In Dallas, there was the accidental Hydrocodone overdose in 2006, but 2008 seemed to be a relatively controversy free year (for Owens) and his release was something of a surprise, but there might have been more to the story than what got out. Terrell Owens was a clubhouse cancer of the highest order, pure and simple. Despite his stats, I don't think he was one of the 1,000 greatest players in pro football history.