I’m guessing nobody really “hates” T.O. the way people hate evil dictators or unscrupulous CEOs or Tim McCarver. T.O. has certain endearing qualities. He’s a colorful personality who is also a highly competitive and productive wide receiver.  His major flaw is an overwhelming desire for attention. Part of me believes he’d be disappointed if the Eagles capitulated to his current demands, because then he’d be off the sports pages and would be forced to earn time on “Sports Center” with his play instead of with his mouth.

It takes a great deal of self-discipline to become a professional athlete and especially a potential Hall of Famer. So why can’t he apply that same dedication toward keeping his jaw clenched and his lips locked?

He has a long history of starting conflagrations with his acid tongue. In April, after the Eagles lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl, T.O. took a shot at his own quarterback, Donovan McNabb, by saying, “(I) wasn’t the guy who got tired in the Super Bowl.”

This was an unfortunate miscalculation on Owens’ part, because he failed to recognize how respected McNabb is in the pro football community. With that one insult, he both stirred the ire of McNabb admirers and also selfishly sought to absolve himself of any blame for the defeat. If he had just remained silent, most fans would have remembered how T.O. doggedly dragged himself out onto the field with a bum wheel and showed more life than most of his teammates. But of course he didn’t.

Greg Fiume / Getty Images Eagles receiver Terrell Owens needs to learn to keep his mouth shut and just perform at the game he plays so well.

He also once intimated that his former teammate with the San Francisco 49ers, quarterback Jeff Garcia, was gay: “Like my boy tells me: If it looks like a rat and smells like a rat, by golly, it is a rat.” He later backed off that comment, but that was the proverbial bell he could not unring.

Owens says now, through his agent Rosenhaus, that he hasn’t decided if he’ll attend training camp. The odds, say Rosenhaus, are “50-50.” NFL players don’t make the bulk of their money until the season starts anyway and they start drawing game checks. Many NFL players who prefer lengthier summers hold out while barking that they’re underpaid, but they usually cave in just in time for the season. Someone like T.O. doesn’t really need training camp, so he can carry his picket sign for a few more weeks.

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But the danger whenever a T.O. matter is unresolved is that he’ll talk some more. Maybe he’ll make a crack about how head coach Andy Reid is single-handedly keeping the Krispy Kreme company in business. Perhaps he’ll compare Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie to a prison warden. Or he could take the nuclear option: Suggest that Mike Schmidt and Julius Erving were overrated.

But what he really should say is nothing at all. The odds on that happening are much worse than 50-50.