It’s not me, it’s you.

Man, I don’t know which story is captivating more of America’s attention this week: the continuing quasi-feud between Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie, or the continuing actual feud between Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens and Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo.  I refuse to write about “Brangelina” and wasn’t even going to touch the “Tonell” story, but I feel as though I have to.  Bear with me.

You ever have that friend who just can’t seem to get into a good, lasting, respectful relationship?  Your friend (let’s call him “Terrell Owens” *) meets someone, and at first, everything seems great.  This one time, he even cried over how much he loved the other person , and even when times were tough, he blamed himself for the failures.  Considering your buddy’s history with relationships, this surprised you, and you thought, “Wow, this might actually work out!”  But then, something happened.  Like that time a few years ago when Terrell was like, “I hate you, Jeff Garcia!” or a few years after that when he was all, “You suck, Donovan McNabb!”  or, like that time in Week 15, when Jason Witten hung that picture of Tomo Romo in his locker at school, even though everyone sort of knew that Tony was sort of totally going out with Terrell at the time, and you were like, “Oohhhh, daaayum, this is gonna be good when Jessica Simpson finds out!”  Yeah, like that.  

Then Terrell SWEARS he saw Jason slipping notes into Tony’s Trapper-Keeper during AP Biology, and he was all, “WTF!!” and then later, when it was time to pick teams for lab, Terrell assumed he and Tony would be partners, because they were totally awesome together, but then Tony picked Jason!  Even though he really didn’t, because the teacher picked the teams, but OMG!  

Then, Terrell was all, “But I’ve only dropped a few test tubes here and there, this isn’t fair!  Everyone knows you don’t get an “A” in this class unless I’m your partner!”  So like, he got together with one of Tony’s ex’s named Sam, and they met this new guy named Roy, and they all met after school one day to like, talk about how much Tony sucks, and stuff.  And meanwhile, the State Biology Championships were coming up in like, two days, and the opponents were totally really good, even though one of their best guys had recently managed to shoot himself!  How would they all work it out in time??  

We shall see.  

Personally, none of this drama surprises me, but for once, I’m unsure how I feel about it.  I’m not a fan of Owens — if he played for my team, I would probably still feel this way, but I respect that he is a talented player.  I’ve seen teams get burned by him many times — a good throw down the middle of the field to T.O. is deadly if the guy has any space to run after the catch.  But his attitude sucks.  His reputation as a “cancer” in the locker room seems to be founded in truth, especially with the news of this latest “not-so-seekrit” meeting with fellow WR’s Roy Williams, Sam Hurd, and Cowboys Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett, to whine about how Tony Romo isn’t throwing to them (read: T.O.) enough.  That very well may be true, but there have got to be better ways of solving complaints than turning your team into the plot for High School Musical 4.  

In Tony’s defense, his team was God-awful without him at the helm (and sometimes God-awful WITH him at the helm, but less-so), and I don’t think he’d try his hardest NOT to throw to T.O.  On the other hand, T.O. does make big plays, so he does have a point — he just stinks at getting across that point effectively, and since his career seems to be following a familiar path of conflict wherever he goes, everyone just gets tired of listening to him bitch all the time.

In the end, though, if a team wants to let itself implode over petty nonsense, so be it.  You don’t win Championships that way, but it’s certainly entertaining for the rest of us.   

* disclaimer: Terrell Owens is not my friend.  

For further reading, try Ed Werder’s article at ESPN.com.