Terrell Owens Bears: Why Does The Veteran Wideout Want To Join Chicago?

Get your popcorn ready! Terrell Owens is now lobbying to join the Chicago Bears. After posting an underachieving 10-6 record that cost Coach Lovie Smith his job, what would Terrell Owens, noted for vociferously demanding to be the best man on the best team, want with Da Bears?

Terrell Owens is interested in the Bears for one reason evidently: their new head coach. Marc Trestman, previously the coach of the CFL Montreal Alouettes, is Lovie Smith's replacement at Head Coach. "I played my first early years in San Francisco with him," Terrell Owens told Comcast Sportsnet. Indeed, Trestman was the Offensive Coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers in 1996, when Owens was drafted out of Chattanooga.

But it has been a long time since then. During the 1996 season, Brett Favre won a Superbowl, Barry Sanders led the league in rushing, Cleveland temporarily ceased to hold an NFL team and Troy Aikman was more than "that guy with Joe Buck on FOX."

The NFL is much different today, and Terrell Owens isn't the same player either in 2013. A just-as-cocky upstart in San Francisco, hadn't yet had his first shouting match with Coach Steve "Mooch" Mariucci, and of course hadn't yet celebrated a touchdown on the Dallas Cowboys' star, which famously didn't sit well with linebacker George Teague. He hadn't repeatedly insulted Donovan McNabb, and played almost every game every season with whatever team he happened to be with.

Terrell Owens today said he's still in-shape enough to play, though, given the chance. After spending most of 2012 as a mostly inconsequential part of the burgeoning Seattle Seahawks, the 39-year-old still wants to play, and evidently wants a taste of the good old days with his former coordinator Marc Trestman in Chicago.

If Owens can prove he can still perform well, even on a struggling team like the Bears, he may be proved right that he would be a good addition to a mediocre NFC North mainstay. Likely starting opposite Brandon Marshall, Owens would help Marshall, or vice versa, to keep secondaries guessing who the deep threat might be in many cases.

But, for the wide receiver that has burned more bridges than the Windy City has over the Chicago River, who knows if he will even be given a chance.