TO dance or not to dance

Recently, we've been hearing a lot of talk about the possibility of Terrell Owens playing in the Super Bowl. This had a lot of people excited. "With Terrell Owens in the game, the Eagles actually stand a chance!" exclaims one camp. "With Terrell Owens in the game, the Patriots' secondary will prove once and for all that TO is an underrated show-off!" retorts the other. "With Terrell Owens in the game, I won't have to wear a ridiculous German get-up and thank a random part of my body for my success in the post-game interview!" says a grateful Freddie Mitchell. To all of this, I say: baloney. Not Oscar Meyer Bologna (that's high quality stuff), but baloney. These reasons, by themselves, may be good reasons to get excited for the return of TO, but they pale a ghostly and transparent white when compared to the real reason to watch TO play in the Super Bowl, and that reason is: I've used up my allotted space for this paragraph, and will have to make the shocking revelation at the beginning of the next one!

We've had at least one amusing touchdown dances this postseason. Randy Moss's mimed mooning of the Green Bay crowd, despite anything Joe Buck has to say, was both historically relevant and hilarious. Freddie Mitchell, the very next week against the Vikings, feigned pulling up a pair of pants. Oh ho HO, Freddie! How extremely clever of you! It's almost like you… well, it's almost like you thought you'd take something that made a member of the opposing team (in)famous, and parody it. Kind of like… well, kind of like TO did against the Ravens, when the latter imitated Ray Lewis.

But even the Eagles' mimicry is a cut above the pathetic post-touchdown displays of the Patriots. Last week against the Steelers, Corey Dillon celebrated a back-breaking run for a touchdown by… flinging the ball towards the back stadium wall and flexing his muscles at the Steeler fans. Later, when Deion Branch iced the cake with his touchdown off the end around that put the Pats up by 21, he galloped through the end zone waving the Steeler fans goodbye with his free hand. News flash: the Steelers hadn't been in the game for quite some time now. Waving goodbye is never a gutsy thing to do, especially after irrelevant insurance points.

We need our master back. We need the guy who always has something creative to do after knifing into the end zone for six, be it signing a ball with a sharpie, taking a cheerleader's pom-poms, or just doing sit-ups (who thought that basic exercise could be so… unsportsmanlike?).

But this is the Super Bowl, the big show on the big stage. And TO's been off his game for weeks and weeks now. I'll bet he needs help coming up with original and flashy in the (admittedly highly unlikely) event that he nabs touchdown pass. Luckily, I may or may not have spent the past 15 minutes brainstorming exactly that, that is, a list of the:

Top 5 Original Touchdown Dances Terrell Owens Should Perform at the Super Bowl
5. The birth of a Super Bowl champion. In this option, Mister Owens crams the ball up under the front of his jersey, waits a few seconds, then lets it fall into his waiting arms, whereupon he cradles it as one would a small child, perhaps smiling at it and tickling it with a single finger. Awwwwwwww.

4. Piggy-back ride! Imagine the following scenario: Donovan McNabb drops back, heaves to Owens, wide open in the end zone! Touchdoooooown! McNabb rushes to the end zone, Owens jumps on his back, and McNabb takes a lap around the field while Owens urges him on with his imaginary whip. Somewhere in there, the ref throws the penalty flag for unsportsmanlike conduct and Joe Buck has an aneurysm, but who cares! General hilarity ensues!

3. A new kind of dancing. Oh man, this one's got me excited just thinking about it. We've all seen the breakdancers at Blair do that spinny-thing on their heads at pep rallies, right? How easily would that translate onto the football field? The answer we're looking for here is "very easily." Football players are already even equipped for this: that helmet is shaped perfectly to achieve maximum spinning potential. I realize TO may not have ever attempted this before, but that's why there's the rest of the week at practice.

2. These last two involve an always-ignored prop: the end zone pylons! You know, those orange giant-carrot looking things at each near corner? This first idea sees TO placing the ball maybe five yards outside the end zone, grabbing both pylons, and setting up by the uprights. Then he launches into an elaborate air-traffic controller routine. Maybe one of his teammates even picks the ball up and brings it in for a "landing," into TO's waiting arms.

1. Terrell the clown. This touchdown dance, should it be pulled off, would be one of, if not the most, awesomely amazing touchdown dance in recorded history. TO grabs both pylons, keeps the ball, and proceeds to: juggle. That's right; I said juggle. He juggles those three objects as long as he can muster, then finally throws the ball up as high as it will go and catches it behind his back, without looking. After pulling this one off, he can retire on the spot: his spot in the Hall of Fame would be assured.

The moral of the story is roughly this: wait a second, you were expecting a moral? From a story about shamelessly unsportsmanlike touchdown celebration? Oh man. What is the world coming to?