Please do not adjust your monitors, but I'm going to tell you all to step off of Terrell Owens.

We all know his history. Owens knows his way around a Sharpie, and before Emmitt Smith was “Dancing With The Stars,” T.O. was dancing on them in Dallas. He’s not above insinuating his own quarterback might prefer dancing in a leather bar to visiting one of the strip variety.

Heck, Owens might even consider faking some sort of suicide attempt in an effort to gain more attention and sympathy from the media and fans.

Nah, I guess no one would go that far.

Still, Owens is considered one of the best wide receivers in the NFL, and for pretty good reason. T.O. has posted more than 11,000 yards and caught 112 touchdowns while bitching and moaning his way to enmity across the land.

Even when he was about as popular as Natalie Maines at a Young Republicans mixer, Bill Parcells and the Cowboys welcomed him to the fold. Performance over personality, baby.

So no matter how much you may despise the man, you have to give him at least a little credit.

That credit, however, might not extend to spitting in another man’s face, as Owens has admitted he did during the Atlanta-Dallas game this weekend. T.O. gave the face wash to Falcons’ defensive back DeAngelo Hall.

Of course, the press and the peanut gallery have been quick to hammer Owens. I myself am not excusing, admiring or advocating his “hock-a-loogie” method of gaining a little distance from Hall’s mug.

But I think we have to take a look at the spittee before we condemn the spitter.

Hall is admittedly a good-to-great defensive back. He also hasn’t had an interception in two months and has been smoked like a holiday ham of late by Hines Ward and Devery Henderson.

Still, Hall handles himself with the humility of P.T. Barnum and the grace of a yappy Chihuahua. He basks in the reflected glow of his idol, Deion Sanders – and I’m not sure I can paint a better picture of a man than that.

So to blast Owens for laying a wet one on Hall is unwarranted. It’s not the method I would have chosen, but then, I don’t know what Hall was saying, and Owens didn’t know he’d shut Hall up later by catching a pair of TDs and helping to sink the Falcons.

I’m just saying, it could have been worse.

Owens could have ripped the helmet from Hall’s head and stomped him. He could have kicked him in the goalpost.

Or if he really wanted to hurt Hall’s feelings, Owens could have said he’d rather listen to Joe Theismann.

So find it in your heart to give T.O. a holiday pass for his saliva faux pas. It’s what Jesus would have expectorated of you.

I'm not sure how many of you saw it last night during the debacle that was the Cowboys being decimated by the Giants, but I thought one of the key plays was Terrell Owens dropping a fourth-down pass from newly inserted quarterback Tony Romo.

Dallas head coach Bill Parcells chose to go for it rather than attempt a 50-yard+ field goal, and after Romo had suffered a pick on his first pass attempt, it was a good idea -- give the new guy another chance to make a play.

So Romo drops back, looks right and then comes back to Owens, who is maybe 10 yards away and two yards beyond the first-down marker. You could have run a cattle drive between T.O. and the nearest defender, and Romo floats him the ball -- and Owens tries to run with it before he makes the catch and drops it.

Now, we all know this happens from time to time, but it was T.O.'s response that simply left me slack-jawed. He comes off the field laughing!

No one said a word, but it looked like Parcells could have run up the steps to Jerry Jones's private box and strangled him right then and there. Personally, I wish Bill would have been right up in his face, and it may have gone something like this:

"See, now I totally believe it wasn't a suicide attempt, because if you can't keep something the size of a goddamned football in your hands for one second, how could I think you could hang on to all those little pills while you were trying to get them down your throat?!?

"And you know what? Since it's so goddamned easy for you to laugh it off when you blow a drive and screw my chance to build a little confidence in my new quarterback and so tough for you to understand why you're not the target on every fucking pass we throw, why don't you go put on your Spandex shorts and hop on the exercise bike behind the bench for a while? Have a good chuckle back there, because you won't see the field for the rest of the fucking night.

"Come and see me when you fully understand that Tony Romo should have come off the field and started screaming at you for being a waste of oxygen, the same way you find it acceptable when one of our quarterbacks doesn't throw you the ball, even when your double-fucking covered. Until then, call a press conference or go get another prescription, because you're done catching passes for me."

I guess a man can dream.