It's Time For Glenn To Go

You all will simply have to hunker down and brace yourselves for the inevitable consequences.

Terry Glenn will become the next Irving Fryar. He will leave the Patriots, then some magic fairy will tranform him into the best model citizen this side of Jim Anderson or Ward Cleaver. Glenn will then look like Jerry Rice, and lead some other team to the Super Bowl.

Hopefully, the difference between Fryar and Glenn is that the team Glenn leaves behind is in better shape than the one Fryar left. All indications are that that ought to be the case.

Glenn’s now legendary interview on WBZ’s Sports Final show on Sunday night should be the final ingredient for the asphault that paves his way out of Foxborough in the not-too-distant future. Glenn made it fairly clear that he is not playing because of his signing bonus, and not because of his hamstring. His refusal to be at Foxborough Stadium in person while sidelined speaks just as loudly as his anger over this whole situation.

This column has tried to be as sympathetic as possible towards Glenn’s lifelong personal struggles. But the time has come to throw arms up in the air and declare that enough is enough. It really matters not what Glenn can do to help this team. Just having him as a teammate is a huge negative for the players to have to endure.

Glenn ran the gamut of negativity in the interview. He was arrogant, inconsiderate, and untruthful, and you might manage to dig up a few more negative adjectives on your own. It is not clear what Glenn was trying to accomplish from this interview, but it sure made for some riveting Sunday night TV.

One has to wonder what Glenn was doing there in the first place, or how WBZ managed to get him there. The smart thinking is that Glenn never shows up without Steve Burton there. Bob Lobel reportedly was skeptical about this interview ever happening, and had a piece with Will McDonough of the Globe ready to go. But Burton got Glenn on the hot seat, and McDonough’s segment never made it on the air.

Lobel and Burton peppered Glenn with all the right questions, and with one exception, Glenn never wavered in his answers.

When asked if he wanted to play again sometime for the Patriots, Glenn said “I did. That’s D-I-D.” Glenn admonished the Patriots to get rid of him, saying that he no longer wants to play for them.

Lobel asked him about his hamstring injury and whether the withholding of the signing bonus had anything to do with it. “Maybe. I’m not getting paid and my hamstring hurts. You do the math!” was his reply.

Lobel asked him if this was all about the money, and gave his only evasive and passive answers. “No, it’s not about the money at all,” said Glenn, adding that he would play for less elsewhere. Glenn perhaps figured that the general public missed his “you do the math” comment. If Glenn says that this isn’t about money, he simply isn’t telling the truth.

When asked if he had made mistakes in his life, Glenn actually admitted to making mistakes. He went on to say that “When I go home I have to live my life. There have been other guys here, like Curtis Martin, who had to move on. I’d rather be out there with the team, but there are more issues than that.”

Issues? “Things escalated that I have to battle,” said Glenn, referring to his suspension and the loss of the signing bonus. Glenn and his agent, James Gould, have spent a great deal of time litigating one thing or another. While Glenn’s side won the appeal of the wideout being placed on the reserve-left camp list in August, he still faces his appeal on the drug suspension, as well as a day in court to answer to assault charges against the mother of his child, Kimberly Combs.

Whew. You are one busy man, Terry. We suggest you devote all your time in court, and stay away from the guys who still want to play football. It’s not that you wanted to be there anyway, as you were seen on game day buying sausage, then speeding home to watch “your team” beat New Orleans, 34-17.

Bill Belichick is trying to hold on to any last hope that this man can help his team. Fuggedaboutit.

Belichick should move right away to place Glenn on injured reserve, ending his season. Considering the injuries that Ted Johnson, Bryan Cox, Matt Light, Drew Bledsoe, Willie McGinest, Mike Compton and Richard Seymour have gone through, it is an insult to these men to keep Glenn hanging around because of a hammy that perhaps isn’t hurt at all.

In this case, it is less about a common procedural move in the NFL. It’s about sending Glenn a message. You’re hurt? Fine. Go to where the hurt people go to. If his hammy is this bad that it has kept him out all this time, open up the roster space and give it to someone who actually wants to play football.

Go home, Terry, and deal with your caseload. And stay away from Foxborough. Just get permanently lost.

Glenn still has to come to the realization that he needs help. Gould, his agent, is seen by most everyone as a buffoon. If not for their victory over the reserve-left camp issue, Glenn would be two steps beyond destitute right now. The first thing Glenn could do for himself is to fire Gould and all his lousy advice right now.

Once he does that, Glenn then needs to sit down and come to grips with what is really wrong in his life. He has to look drugs and assault dead in the eye and face up to them. He has to look at his troubled past and how his tremendous athletic ability can negate most (but not all) of the anguish in his youth, but that by acting this way he is throwing all this God-given talent away.

And he has to look at everyone’s perception of him and not blow it off to all of his problems as the root cause. Most of his problems today were caused by Glenn himself, and not by some creep who murdered his mother. Glenn half-heartedly took some responsibility for his actions, but it was more like defense rather than repentence.

As for the Patriots, sooner or later they will have to deal him.

They own his rights until 2007. There is no need for the Patriots to “hurry up and deal him”. Right now his trade value is the pits, made worse by that interview. Dealing him will only hurt the cap for 2002, unless the Patriots bide their time and see how some things play out.

The Patriots should at least wait and see if they have to pay his signing bonus. Which way that decision goes will go a long way to determine what compensation the Patriots will get for him. The more expensive he is, the less the Patriots would get. But not waiting until the signing bonus issue is resolved is totally imprudent.

The Patriots can keep putting Glenn on injured reserve, which will only free up roster space but not help their cap situation any. The key here is to wait and see if they can get his signing bonus off the books first, and then a better deal can be had.

If nothing else, it sure makes you appreciate Troy Brown and David Patten that much more.

The Patriots need to keep Glenn off the field and away from the other players. It’s just as much respectful as it is the right thing to do.

Glenn needs to go home and spend all of his time getting his life back in order. But he’s never heeded our advice, or anyone’s for that matter. He listens only to Gould, which is like Bill Clinton asking for help from Jesse Jackson on marital fidelity.

And if Glenn one day winds up in Canton? Oh, well.

As long as the Patriots wind up in a few Super Bowls, who cares where Glenn goes.

About Bob George

Covering Boston Sports since 1997. Native of Worcester, Mass. Attended UMass and Univ of Michigan. Lives in California. Just recently retired after 40 years of public school teaching. Podcasts on YouTube at @thepic4139

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