Drew Bledsoe is a fine quarterback, but he’s no better than Donovan McNabb and therefore a likely target for Owens’ wrath. T.O. doesn’t know how to relate to teammates, doesn’t understand diplomacy or tact, and doesn’t care whose feathers he ruffles. If he’s unhappy, he’ll lash out and won’t care how it looks. Expect to see Owens pacing up and down the sidelines next season chastising a quietly fuming Bledsoe over some gaffe on the field, just as he did with McNabb last year.

Bill Parcells is undoubtedly a great coach, but he has met his match in Owens. It’s one thing to argue with Antonio Bryant and then toss him out of practice, as Parcells did in 2004. It’s quite another to do so with Owens.

T.O. is the Michael Jordan of nuisances. The man has no peer. And whereas Bryant was 23 when he seared the Tuna, Owens is 32 and shows no signs of mellowing. If he hasn’t matured by now, it’s unlikely it’ll ever happen, at least during his NFL career. Owens’ presence around the Cowboys will eventually cast a pall that will affect the team’s fortunes on the field and will negate anything he can do with his talent.

And what of Jerry Jones? It’s hard to notice any lines of worry on his forehead, but that’s because the skin has been pulled tight by a plastic surgeon. Give it time. After a few weeks with T.O., he’ll be bedridden and pleading with nurses to smother him with a pillow.

Jones went after Owens because he has that Texas-sized arrogance that deludes him into thinking he can accomplish what other owners can’t. He has won Super Bowls on his watch, so his claims aren’t all bogus.

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But Jones welcoming Owens into the fold and then announcing to people that he’ll be Mr. Congeniality as a Cowboy is the biggest flim-flam perpetrated in that state since Ken Lay urged his company’s employees to keep buying more Enron stock.

Some things in Texas are just too big to be believed.