SPORTSDAY

SEGMENT 1

EISEN: How would you describe your relationship with Tony Romo, Terrell Owens?

OWENS: Batman and Robin, that’s the first thing that came into my head. I’ll be Batman.

ROMO: I guess I’m Robin. I’m gonna switch and be the Joker. I don’t know how this next movie ends. We’ll see.

EISEN: So how would you, Tony, describe your relationship with Terrell Owens?

ROMO: It’s good. People sometimes get a perception of different people from afar. Before he became a Dallas Cowboy, you’d hear about him, certain things. But I tell everyone all the time, since he’s been here in Dallas, the guy that I know I enjoy being around. He’s great, we have fun, we go out on the field and we work hard and we’re trying to win a lot of football games. And in the process, it’s been very enjoyable to be around him.

EISEN: Would you say this is the best relationship you’ve had with a quarterback in the National Football League?

ROMO: Of course it is. Without a doubt.

OWENS: Yeah, I would say that. Definitely. Seriously, we had a great year last year and it really stemmed from our first year being together, which was my first year with the Cowboys. When he was a backup we established that relationship, a great bond, and we talked about the moment when he became a starting quarterback. It was obviously about winning football games, playoff games and getting to the Super Bowl. Obviously, it didn’t end the way we wanted it to end this year. But with the way the season went, and obviously with the talent we have, it’s extra motivation going into next season.

EISEN: Is there some bond between you guys, Terrell, or is where you are in your career and your own maturation process that you can get along with Tony better than anybody else?

OWENS: I think it’s probably a combination of both. I’ve gotten along with every quarterback that I’ve had. There have been some differences, some things that have happened for whatever reason. Overall, even before those things happened, I think there was a friendship there, there was a bond. Sometimes, they end well. Sometimes, they don’t. It’s like a marriage.

ROMO: Rich has been married three times. I read your book.

EISEN: Are you picking things up from this paparazzi world you’re living in, starting rumors and conjecture? I wouldn’t expect that.

ROMO: I would never. We’re not caught up in that stuff. I know you like to read that stuff Rich. It’s more to help you.

EISEN: I’m selling these photos to OK! Magazine …

OWENS: I heard you had a classified researcher, so I know where you are.

ROMO: Everyone thinks Rich knows all these things about the NFL, all these little stats, but he’s getting this …

EISEN: They just say these things in my ear.

ROMO: I learned more about the game in the last 10 minutes than I did the entire season.

Video of Owens breaking down after the playoff game played

EISEN: Tony, what were your thoughts?

ROMO: I think first, you can tell T.O. had a little bit of a Shaft look going there. Pulled up collar with the shades, it was pretty cool. I liked it. That was the first thing that came to mind. Nah, it was difficult that night for me when I went home, because we lost in the playoffs and that’s a very difficult thing to swallow as a competitor. But you turn on the TV and that comes on, for me personally, that means a lot. It meant a lot because of the moment and what goes on with you as you feel, you just don’t feel good about the loss. And when your teammate stands up for you like that and stands up for the team like that, that just goes to show you how much fun we had as a team out there. Honestly, every day, we work our butt off going out there, but we really enjoy being around each other, goofing off a little bit and trying to win football games. I think it goes to show you the passion he has for the game. Not everyone gets to see that. They don’t get to see how much he actually cares about winning and about his teammates. He’s gonna be vocal, he wants to get the ball once in a while and he’s a great receiver, and I don’t know anyone who’s not like that. It’s a situation where you get to see how much he actually cares. I know it meant a lot to me and it meant a lot to the rest of the guys.

EISEN: What are your thoughts when you’re see this again?

OWENS: It brings up a few emotions, it brings you back. But I think just listening to Tony, I think two words he mentioned – one was moment and the other was passion. After the game, it was a moment. Obviously, just reflecting on the season, that was a moment where everything just boiled over. Me, I’m a passionate person, whether it’s on the field or off the field. And I think I knew what everyone had put in, as far as dedication to this season. And I’ve mentioned it before. Marcus Spears, Bradie James, Roy Williams, these guys dropped 8-10 pounds, just to dedicate themselves to what they were going to be able to do during the course of the season. Bradie James, these guys were our leaders, they were our captains. And for us lose at the end of the season like, it was very, very disappointing, especially with the regular season, the 13-2 season we had put up.

SEGMENT 2

ROMO: Give me your favorite moment of that last season, T.O. Is there a moment or maybe a game, something that sticks out to you?

OWENS: Favorite moment … Probably when we played the Giants the second time and we’re probably around the 10-yard line, somewhere in there, and we run this play. And you start to run up the middle and you kinda duck and then all of the sudden, you throw over to the left, and there’s Tony Curtis, he scores the touchdown. The joke is he tries to say he saw him the whole time out of his peripheral. But he kinda ducks, and he thought he was going to get blasted and he looks up, he didn’t get hit, and he finds Tony Curtis in the corner of the end zone. He said he saw him the whole time.

ROMO: I didn’t see him the whole time, I saw him at the last second. And the worst thing was, the Giants wore red that day, they wore red and you could see that from a mile away. Out there, if you don’t see red in that direction, you can throw it without even looking.

OWENS: We had a lot of great moments throughout the course of the season. But I think practice, really, honestly was best part of the year.

EISEN: Practice?

OWENS: Yeah. Coach, he allowed the DJs to come out there, we had music, we had fun. We had fun.

EISEN: Did he play anything off the Parcells iPod?

OWENS: I don’t think that made it.

EISEN: Didn’t make it, huh?

ROMO: We had a little Soulja Boy.

OWENS: We had a little bit of everything.

EISEN: So Wade Phillips really had an affect on this team. We talk about it, we hear about it and now I’m hearing something I hadn’t heard all season long – That’s something that obviously hadn’t happened before.

OWENS: Tremendous affect. I think anybody that knew about our first season (under Wade) and Bill’s last season, that type of thing never would’ve happened. It’s two different styles of coaches, two different approaches and, as you see, the success we had this year, it was unthinkable. But at the time, I think everybody kind of adopted coach’s philosophy. We had fun in training camp, he didn’t kill us. And we respected that. He held us accountable to go out there on the football field, even not killing us and knowing we were going to go out there and have fun. Before every game he would tell us, the mistakes were his. That would tell us, hey, just go out there and play football.

ROMO: I know we’re talking about football and that’s important, but I was wondering, I don’t if you know this Rich, T.O.’s a pretty good basketball player. And we actually played last year in a little pick-up game out at the YMCA in Dallas, and just tell us a little bit about your performance that day, T.O.

OWENS: It wasn’t a performance, really.

EISEN: What was it?

OWENS: For me, it wasn’t a performance at all. I was just going out there, trying to get some cardio before the season started. And I’d just come off two finger surgeries, so I wasn’t really as active and I wasn’t playing my best ballgame.

ROMO: His pinky finger hurt, it was tough.

EISEN: So what happened?

OWENS: We end up losing and I felt bad because I wasn’t playing my best. I was being cautious.

EISEN: So are you saying you had a John Starks, Game 6, NBA Finals …

OWENS: It wasn’t that bad.

ROMO: It was like a Willis Reed, but him never coming out of the locker room.

EISEN: Well, Prime (Deion Sanders) talks about your basketball prowess all the time, Tony. Prime says you’ve got some serious game.

ROMO: Nah, nah. He’s pretty good, we get out there.

EISEN: How good a basketball player is Deion Sanders?

ROMO: He’s actually a physical little guy, and he’s got a little bit of speed.

EISEN: Physical little guy?

ROMO: That’s his game, he shoots it a little bit. I’ll say this – I think probably five, 10 years ago, he’d have been real dynamic. But right now, he’s a real good role player. Nah, he’s good. He actually told me he’s going to play in the All-Star Game, the celebrity game. So he’s all excited about that. He told me he’s going to drop 30.

EISEN: I heard him call you on the way to the media center at the Super Bowl, he got you involved, you’re going to play in this game, right?

ROMO: No, I’m not. I’d just embarrass myself.

OWENS: Since we’re talking about other sports, other than our own, how about your golf game? We hear you’re a good golfer.

ROMO: It’s overrated, I’m not that good. I went and played last week, and I’m like, ‘I’ll see how it is, I’ve got some good things going.’ And I went out there with my pops, and I’m not very good. I swear I’m getting worse, I don’t know what’s going on.

OWENS: I heard you tried out last year, you missed the (U.S. Open qualifying) cut by like a couple strokes.

ROMO: Nah, that was two years ago.

EISEN: I’ll tell you the most impressive game that Tony Romo apparently has …

OWENS: We all know that.

EISEN: The paparazzi’s been revealing it the last couple weeks.

ROMO: I don’t know if the general public knows all these things that happen, they just go by what they read. Sometimes, they don’t realize. We got this cool poolside area here and the neatest thing is that every night when I go to bed upstairs, you know you’re lying down and you kind of wake up in the middle of the night, go to bathroom or whatever, I look over the balcony and there’s one person down here at one in the morning every night. And no one realizes, but it’s Rich Eisen. Every single night, he closes down the bar every night. He’s gonna sit right there and in about 12 hours, if you want to see Rich, just go over there.

OWENS: Then, behind a bush, is this cheap researcher …

EISEN: With a camera for OK! Magazine.