Exactly one minute before the 8:45 a.m. appointed time for the beginning of practice here on Wednesday, Owens sprinted past the gauntlet of minicams and the phalanx of reporters, out of the team's NovaCare Complex and onto the field for the first time since having been banished by coach Andy Reid from training camp last week. He did not look right. He did not look left. He certainly didn't glance up at the single-engine plane that incessantly circled the practice facility towing a banner that read: "T-O must G-O."
He did not, let the record show, seek out quarterback Donovan McNabb for an embrace or a chest bump. Or anyone else for that matter. The guy is one cool customer and, even in the morning heat, there was a palpable chill in the air. More than a mea culpa, the return of Owens was mostly about the first two letters of that Latin term.