Terrell Owens believes the Buffalo media has been provoking him.
During an interview with Sporting News Radio’s “Two Live Stews,” on Monday, Owens stated that certain local media members have been attempting to goad him.
His feeling is that the media in Buffalo is trying to stir up trouble, just like others did during his stops in Dallas and Philadelphia.
“Over the years I’ve always kind of spoken openly about whatever is being asked with my answers,” Owens told the radio program. “The last four or five years I’ve kind of noticed that and tried taking some steps to prevent some of those things from happening.
“But [Sunday] as you saw, it was obviously … [the media] took some more than initiative to try to get me to kind of go down the wrong path.”
A media circus has followed the enigmatic Owens around since he left San Francisco for Philadelphia following the 2003 season. He has openly criticized coaches and teammates at times, particularly quarterbacks Jeff Garcia and Donovan McNabb.
But Owens says he’s trying to avoid doing that here.
“I’m just trying to do the best job I can do as far as answering the questions and trying to be a better teammate and not try to throw people under the bus,” Owens said.
Avoiding the media for post-game interviews during the first two weeks, Owens showed up after Buffalo’s 27-7 loss to New Orleans to answer questions.
It was following a game in which Owens did not catch a pass, ending a streak of 185 games with at least one reception.
His most frequent response was, “just going with the plays called,” and skirted around a question of quarterback Trent Edwards’ decision-making ability.
“No, I don’t want to answer that, because whatever I say you guys are going to turn it to however you want to say,” Owens said on Sunday.
The much-maligned wide receiver had stayed away from the press because he felt his answers were going to be misconstrued or taken out of context.
“I was trying to take myself out of the situation and not do interviews at all until I had a talk with [NFL senior vice president of public relations] Greg Aiello,” Owens said.
“[I] kind of got into a heated discussion with him as far as my stance on not doing postgame interviews because I’m not trying to go down the same road that I’ve been down before,” Owens said during the interview.
“So I took the initiative and they told me I had to talk in the postgame. I just went in there and did the best job that I can do without creating any media headlines. Obviously, what I did [Sunday] created headlines.”