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Lori: i believe that team's folded.

with all due respect, let me dip my toes into this one, and provide some humble perspective for what it's worth. based on a very unscientific survey, the media isn't the only one with "so little to talk about." you passionate folks on this board have certainly covered the terrell owens subject from just about every angle as well. by my count, there have been 12 pages worth of owens postings on this board since march 7, the day he signed with buffalo: from "the wit of owens," to "i'm not sure if i'm psyched or pissed," to "i hope TO loses his mind," to "TO jerseys!" and that's from a very brief perusal. and there's no way of telling how many times owens has actually been mentioned on this board because the search function here is limited to only the first 1000 results, which go back only to 2004 ( just what kinda show you runnin' here, lori? ). i think it would be safe to assume that there were at least a few more -- hundred, thousand, hundred-thousand? -- mentions dating further back. i'd also hazard a guess that not all the posts pre-buffalo were glowing tributes to owens, or questioned whether the media was blowing things out of proportion because there was nothing left to talk about. there is a car-wreck quality to celebrities such as this, and rubber-necking from afar is part of the amusement. and, in case anyone didn't read the rules, the goal posts don't change when owens winds up in your backyard. no shocker either that, according to the statistics here, the most members to be on this board at the same time ever just happened to take place at around 6:52 p.m. on march 7. ... hmm, what happened then? bills win a super bowl? make the playoffs? fire jauron? ... nuh, uh. t.o. is, as someone recently and aptly put it to me, is "a walking twitter.com." (thanks, kelly, i'd like your permission to use that on the wire at some point this year.) his attention-grabbing aura transcends sports, and in this 24-hour info-tainment, tmz-driven celebreality media business of ours, that makes him a very heavy player (personal trainer, aside). think johnson-flutie made national headlines back in the day? that's cat stuck in a tree stuff, compared to the mountain-moving potential t.o. could generate by simply tying his shoe. i was in albany a few days after his signing, when someone outside the sports business asked me what the big deal was all about, after i had noted that my life for the next 10 months was going to be far busier ... i might have said `living hell,' but i might be paraphrasing. i responded by saying, 'imagine brittany spears moving in next door.' t.o. sells, because he has the rare mix of a sparkplug personality and, as the kids put it these days, mad skills (or was that last week's term?). and it ain't going to slow down, folks. all of this news has been so far generated during the offseason. good god, wait until june, or the first day of training camp, or the first game ... or even the last one. it doesn't make it right. but it also doesn't mean the media's the only one fueling this runaway train. as i wrote the day after his signing, buffalo has never had an athlete such as this. t.o. might well be the first player i've covered in this town to have not only one publicist, but an actual team of publicists. and, for good and ill (to steal a line from the late Doctor Hunter S. Thompson), he becomes the city's third franchise, meaning us folks in the media trenches have to devote nearly as much time covering owens as we do the sabres and bills. simply tracking every rumor can be a 24-hour exercise. i'm not complaining. this is part of the job description, and if i can't look forward to the season ahead, then i might as well get out now. doesn't make the task any less daunting, fair, unfair or futile. but to say that the media is making something out of nothing, well, i think there's a lot of that going around and not strictly limited to us in the business. we are what we eat, so welcome to a brave new world. jw

thanks. though i'm trying to avoid being drawn into the poddy talk, leaving me concerned in regards to your curious bathroom fixation, K. modern medicine has cures for that, eh? oh, and thanks for the hello, dean, too.

thanks, lori. longtime reader, first-time (whoops, now second-time) poster. not sure if i can add any more decorum to this hallowed board. but i'll attempt to provide what perspective i have when and where i can, especially approaching what should be a very entertaining year -- win or lose -- and a daunting one at that for us folks in the trenches for obvious reasons: t.o. AND t.o, and not always in that order, if you catch my drift. jw

Vincent L. Taylor, for the past year, has been and continues to be listed by the NFL Players Association as Jason Peters' agent. As far as I know, Taylor works with Eugene Parker in some capacity regarding Peters. Not exactly sure how the two are affiliated, though it's not uncommon for a major agent, such as Parker, to have a stable of agents spread across the country. The first I learned of Parker's involvement is when The Buffalo News attempted to reach Parker during Peters' holdout last year. That said, Taylor is Peters' rep. jw