T.O. catches three TDs in indoor debut

ALLEN, Texas – The stage has gotten smaller for Terrell Owens.

Owens, 38, played his first game for the Allen Wranglers of the Indoor Football League, a 50-30 win over the Wichita Wild. He caught three passes, all for touchdowns, and was named the Player of the Game, to no one's surprise.

After all, he's co-owner of the team.

Owens didn't catch a pass in the second half, but said it's an adjustment playing arena football. He was talking about playing in the confines of a 50-yard, narrowed field, but obviously everything is an adjustment from the oversized NFL.

"I'm starting to get a feel for the nuances of indoor football," Owens said. "Obviously we are in a condensed field. For myself, it's challenging because there are tight windows. Routes are a lot faster, the timing of the routes are faster."

After 15 seasons in the NFL, Owens was out of football in 2011. He suffered a knee injury in the off-season, but still wasn't signed after staging an open workout to prove he was back to full health.

Of course, there's more to signing Owens than his 1,078 career catches, 15,934 yards and 156 touchdowns. There's the baggage that comes with being one of the most controversial players in NFL history.

His stays in San Francisco, Philadelphia and Dallas all ended in bitterness and feuds with teammates. His last two years in the league were one-year stints in Buffalo and Cincinnati.

Owens says he's not trying to prove he can still play in the NFL, because to him there's no doubt about his ability.

"For myself, I'm really just trying to keep myself in shape for the most part," Owens said. "Obviously, with the days of back-to-back practicing, that's obviously helping me allow my leg to get stronger. I feel like I'm healthy enough to play football. As you can see, there's not anything that I can't do."

His new quarterback, Bryan Randall, is happy to have him in the indoor game.

"I was surprised, actually, how much man-to-man [coverage] that he got," Randall said. "And for press coverage, I mean, NFL guys can't stop him in press coverage so in this league I really wasn't expecting to see it. It kind of caught me off guard. As you all can see, if you put it up there he's going to go make plays."

The Wranglers' uniforms look remarkably similar to those worn by the Owen's former Dallas-area employer:  dark blue jerseys, silver helmets and pants with blue and white. But that was the only thing reminiscent of the NFL.

The halftime show was an ice sculpture exhibition followed by a performance by a group of pint-sized cheerleaders. There are two, large video screens, but nothing like the Godzilla-tron hanging in Arlington.

The Wranglers' first offensive play was, of course, a deep pass to Owens. The pass fell incomplete, but Owens was held by Wichita's Darvin Peterson, drawing a pass interference flag.

"Again, if we're outdoors I run away from that," Owens said. "Those are some of the things you have to adjust to playing indoors."

That was the only time Owens was targeted in the first quarter, but he caught his first IFL pass at the start of the second quarter on a 10-yard down-and-in for a touchdown.

No theatrics followed Owens' first TD in two years. No popcorn tossing, no Sharpie pen, no pom-poms. Just a simple spin of the ball on the turf.

The subdued celebrations continued. Owen's next catch was a 23-yard streak down the left sideline. Later, he caught a 16-yard pass and out-muscled a tackler to break into the end zone.

The scary prospect for Owens is that he never seemed too big for the field, especially during the second half when he failed to catch a pass.

"We ran the ball a little bit more in the second half trying to get our running backs some touches, trying to establish some things up front," Owens said.

"It just depends on what the defense gives us and he [Randall] is the decision-maker back there."

Wonder how many of his ex-quarterbacks would roll their eyes at that last sentence?

Allen is a northern suburb of Dallas and its arena, the Allen Event Center, is a modern, 6,225-seat facility with a ring of suites crowning the seating bowl.

It wasn't quite a packed house for Owens' arena debut – official attendance was 5,711 – but one team official estimated it was a bigger crowd than all of the Wranglers' home games last season combined.

That the building wasn't filled to the rafters could be a bad sign for Owens once the novelty of his presence wears off. He was given a 50 percent stake in the team as part of his compensation package. IFL players make only $225 a game, with a $25 bonus for a win.

The bottom line Friday night was that the famed "T.O." was back on a football field, albeit a much smaller one.


Follow Keith Whitmire on Twitter: @Keith_Whitmire