Eagles’ T.O. poll gets punk’d

Do Eagles fans want Terrell Owens back or not?

After the lightning-rod receiver (a phrase not to be taken literally) was dumped by the Dallas Cowboys, naturally local folks wanted to know.

After all, he helped lead the Eagles to the 2005 Super Bowl - before his pouty pay-me campaign resulted in his being banished by the team.

But anyone who compared two local surveys yesterday had to wonder:

Do the websites have diametrically disagreeing audiences?

Or was something fishy going on?

Sniff. Sniff. Yeech. Smells like old mackerel to me.

"Gimme that Filet-O-Fish! Gimme that fish!" as that mounted McDonald's gillster sings.

Indeed, a popular national website, it turns out, encouraged a bit of sabotage.

Profootballtalk.com noticed a poll on the Eagles website yesterday that asked: "Do you want the Eagles to sign T.O.?"

"No" got 62.9 percent of 9,625 votes, it noted.

Then came this mischievous suggestion:

"You know, we should probably all vote 'yes,' just for gits and shiggles."

Apparently acquiring that combo condition is desirable to a sizeable segment of the population.

Less than 40 minutes later, Profootballtalk.com crowed, under the headline "PFT PLANET SKEWS THE EAGLES POLL," that the voting quickly turned.

"As of 3:47 p.m., a total of 20,170 votes have been cast. And 'yes' now has 64.3 percent of the vote."

"Gimme that Filet-O-Fish! Gimme that fish!"

(Sorry, it's a tune with hooks.)

Soon an update was added: "As of 3:57 p.m. EST, it's now 76.5 percent 'yes,' with more than 32,000 total votes. I hope they feed their hamsters well."

Yes, don't want any hamsters to get "gits and shiggles."

The Eagles stopped the poll shortly afterward.

Out of 33,315 final votes, 76.1 percent picked "yes," according to its poll archives.

More believable seems to be a poll on the Eagles message board here at Philly.com. As of this morning, out of almost 19,000 votes, more than 70 percent said no. (See link at right.)

In another Philly.com poll, more than 60 percent of nearly 1,000 votes were logged for "No way. Are you nuts?" (See actual poll at right.)

A similar Inquirer poll asks this morning whether any NFL team should take a chance on Owens.

About 77 percent of more than 600 votes were no's.

So far, judging from reports from around the league, most teams agree.