NFL has T.O.'s number but makes a dropped call

Can you hear me now?

U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman and his congressional cronies should be extremely pleased with the NFL's drug work this week.

Ooh... Terrell Owens now has the league looking at him sideways.

But more to the point, a name that even the most uninformed member of Congress can recognize has been bandied about like news of gas thieves for two days now.

What did T.O. do?

Something.

The NFL's latest crackdown has unearthed some very damning evidence on the Dallas Cowboys wide receiver.

Don't laugh. It has led the league to an obvious snag with T.O.'s cellphone provider.

Good work, Commissioner Goodell.

Since Feb. 27, when all four commissioners of the major pro leagues appeared before Congress, there has been a four-sport effort to satisfy everyone on Capitol Hill.

Because the NFL wants so much to impress Congress (read: look vigilant so they'll call off the subcommittee dogs), Owens has been found guilty of having terrible phone manners.

He has never tested positive for drugs during a 12-year NFL career, but league officials apparently must suspect something. I'll give 'em that.

But what happened to confidentiality of the drug program?

I mean, a guy tests "clean" after being difficult to reach by phone for a random drug test -- and he still gets called out publicly? How is that possible?

The answer: high-profile player.

There's no other way to put it. When the fine men and women of Congress have their boot to your neck, you want perhaps more than anything else in the world to make sure they take notice of what you're doing to keep your sport free of performance-enhancing drugs.

And when the work becomes sloppy and the findings are empty, you hope to still wow them with name recognition.

Until now, the biggest NFL name linked to performance enhancers was Shawn Merriman of the San Diego Chargers. He was suspended four games in 2006.

This week, T.O.'s name was tossed out there by ESPN like a TMZ "exclusive" on the same day that former Cowboys linebacker Ryan Fowler, now of the Titans, was named in a more serious steroids investigation.

But who knows Ryan Fowler?

Probably not many who sit on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

In three seasons with the Cowboys, Fowler played special teams and had 51 more tackles than you or I did. He was an undrafted free agent in '04.

Hard worker. Nice player. Miniscule NFL name in the grand scheme of things.

Both stories -- T.O.'s and Fowler's -- made the rounds Monday, but which one do you think provided more talk around the water cooler?

Jerry Jones, of course, immediately rushed to T.O.'s defense, explaining that even a billionaire isn't dumb enough to fork over a $12.9 million signing bonus on a $34 million contract extension to a suspected illegal-substance user.

"We signed Terrell to the new contract because there are no issues with Terrell," Jones said in a prepared statement.

In truth, Jerry has always been enamored of a Michael Irvin or a Terrell Owens because of their extreme derring-do, both on the field and off. Jerry is drawn to this element of danger.

And while Jones can sometimes be adamant to a fault, all arrows point to some slipshod work by the NFL in the case of one Terrell Eldorado Owens.

Could it be a slow-surfacing suspicion by a few that no one can possibly attain such a Greek god-like body through genetics and time spent in front of a weight-room mirror?

This week, we've been entertained by a classic case of "here's what we don't have on this guy." Sadly, even clean, Owens' name is a part of the drug culture in sports now.

His information has been dumped into a nefarious folder marked "reasonable cause." He now can be randomly tested up to 24 times per year, for possibly the rest of his career.

Players not in the "reasonable cause" vat can be randomly tested up to six times. Big difference.

And while it's possible for a player to "graduate" from the suspect list after two years -- very few do in the NFL.

The league needs to remain vigilant on all cases, with all players, I realize that.

But keep it under wraps, fellas.

You may impress Congress, but you're doing a disservice to the drug program... and the players involved.

Can you hear me now?