Posted by ESPN.com's Mike McAllister
HONOLULU -- As one of the league's most polarizing figures, Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens elicits a range of responses from fans any time he plays. That's especially true in a game such as the Pro Bowl, in which supporters of basically every team are sitting in the stands.
So when T.O. dropped a couple of passes early in Sunday's game, he heard the boos from the Aloha Stadium crowd. No surprise there. But he managed to turn many of the boos into cheers by the end of the afternoon, finishing with a game-high eight catches for 101 yards and two touchdowns in the NFC's 42-30 comeback win.
"I just had to regroup. I've been partying all week, so I just had to get back in a rhythm," said Owens, who hosted a Pro Bowl party earlier this week that was attended by several players. "Once I got that out of my system, it was cool."
Half of Owens' catches were delivered by Bucs QB Jeff Garcia, Owens' former teammate in San Francisco from 1999-2003. A 27-yard pass was one of the key plays on a drive that Owens ended with a six-yard TD catch that gave the NFC the lead for good. Then Owens had back-to-back catches for first downs that led to Vikings running back Adrian Peterson's TD that put the game away.
Considering the controversial and contentious history between Garcia and Owens, it was a little surprising that they were able to recreate that ol' 49er chemistry.
But with the game -- and $20,000 a man (the difference between the winning and losing teams) -- on the line, maybe it's not that much of a shock.
"It seemed like old times," Garcia said. "We didn't miss a beat. ... A guy like that, you have to give him opportunities to make plays."
Said Owens: "It doesn't matter who's back there at quarterback -- he does his job, I do my job. It works out for everybody."
And the key for any quarterback working with T.O. is to not get discouraged when he does drop passes. That's a lesson that Tony Romo has quickly learned in his two seasons working with T.O. in Dallas.
"The guy's a resilient person," Romo said. "I know him, and I'm not going to stop feeding him the ball. He always has a knack for coming back when something negative happens."
