Terrell Owens tears ACL, His 2011 NFL Season in Jeopardy

A report came out over the weekend that NFL Free Agent Terrell Owens has recently had surgery to repair a torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL). Owens was apparently injured at some point in the off-season, but there are no confirmed reports as to how.

This past season Owens played for the Cinncinnati Bengals on a one-year contract. He had 72 receptions for 982 yards and 9 TDs. Pretty respectable numbers for a guy who was in his 15th season in the NFL.

However, off-the-field attitude issues (that sometimes spill onto the field), have made it difficult in recent years to get signed. He has managed consecutive one-year contracts with losing teams Buffalo and Cinncinati, seemingly not getting offers from any winning franchises.

Owens, with his history of overcoming injury (remember the Eagles Super Bowl year), could conceivably come back in time to help a playoff contender, if a team wanted to roll the dice on a 37 year old with a major attitude and coming off of ACL surgery.

Despite the bad reputation, Terrell Owens is no doubt a future Hall of Famer. Currently ranking 2nd in career receiving yards, tied for 2nd (with Randy Moss) in career receiving TDs, and is 5th in career receptions (although he is one season away from jumping into 2nd place).

That's pretty significant considering that Jerry Rice's receiving records will likely never be broken.

Photo by Mark Zerof, US Presswire; Courtesy of USA Today