The next time Terrell Owens wants to call out a cornerback, he might want to check with Carson Palmer to see if his quarterback will even bother to look his way during a game.

Earlier this week, Sir Big Mouth said that Jets’ defensive back Darrelle Revis was “just an average corner,” then went on to catch only three passes for 17 yards in the Bengals’ 26-10 loss to the Jets on Thursday night. T.O. may have had more catches had Palmer not stayed away from Revis the entire night.

Then again, had Palmer looked T.O.’s way 30 times it may not have mattered. A hamstring injury limited Revis earlier in the year but now he’s playing near the elite level he was last year, which is amazing considering his performance in 2009 may have been the best ever by a cornerback. He’s finally starting to look 100% again and his domination of T.O. on Thursday may be the springboard he needs to shutdown receivers the rest of the way.

While Revis was making T.O. invisible, Brad Smith was doing all the scoring for the Jets. Not even a minute had ticked off the clock in the third quarter when he took an end-around 53 yards for a score to give the Jets a 10-7 lead. Then, after the Bengals had kicked a field goal early in the fourth, Smith took the ensuing kickoff back 89 yards for a touchdown and ran the last 50 or so yards with only one shoe. It was the third touchdown he’s scored against Cincinnati in the last two years, as he also scored in the Jets’ Week 17 victory last year against the Bengals.

Earlier in the day, the Patriots also won by crushing the Lions so they remain tied with the Jets at 9-2 in the AFC East. New York currently holds a tiebreaker between the two teams by virtue of their victory in Week 2, but New England could have its revenge next Monday night in Foxboro.

Not to be outdone by Terrell Owens, Freddie Mitchell decided to join in on the bashing of Donovan McNabb.

From AOL Fanhouse:

“I respect both Coach Reid and Coach Shanahan — they have two total different coaching theories,” Mitchell said. “I can only wonder what would have happened in the Super Bowl if Reid stepped up and said, ‘You know what? You’re playing like [expletive], you’re benched.’ I don’t know many coaches that have the balls to do that. He was playing like [expletive] and he should have been benched. … And don’t say he doesn’t have a record of this; he did the same thing in every single championship game.”

What’s interesting here is that McNabb made Mitchell relevant with that 4th-and-26 play (photo) to help the Eagles beat the Packers to reach the Super Bowl. Otherwise, nobody would have remembered who this clown was. If McNabb throws to a different receiver on that play or the pass falls incomplete, Mitchell’s name is never brought up again.

You can measure a man’s character during times like these and I venture to say that Mitchell doesn’t have any. Instead of coming to their former quarterback’s defense, T.O. and Mitchell (who couldn’t get a job in the league if he offered to play for free) decided to kick him while he’s down. McNabb has made six Pro Bowls, led his team to multiple NFC title games and one Super Bowl, yet he’s supposed to take all the blame for losing to the Patriots in ’05.

Football is a team game. God forbid T.O. or Mitchell say something like, “I could have done more, too. We lost as a team.” Oh, no – it’s all McNabb’s fault. He was the one who couldn’t get it done and it was because of him that Philly never won a Super Bowl.

Give me a break. McNabb’s not perfect but he did more for the Philadelphia Eagle organization than Owens and Mitchell combined. And at least T.O. has done something in the league. Mitchell was a joke.

Apparently too much time had passed between Terrell Owens taking a shot at Donovan McNabb, so the receiver took the opportunity to do so on the “T. OCHO Show” Tuesday night.

In reference to Mike Shanahan benching McNabb last Sunday in Detroit, 2 said:

“Well, I don’t really want to start anything, but I did play in the Super Bowl and there were rumors where he couldn’t get our two-minute offense going at the end of the game, I’m just saying.”

“Well, this is a situation where Mike Shanahan, he sees these two quarterbacks on an everyday basis. … So he’s had a chance to observe.”

I love T.O. He says he “doesn’t want to start anything” and then proceeds to start something but throwing McNabb under the bus (yet again) for the Eagles’ Super Bowl loss to the Patriots. “I’m just saying.” We know you are, Terrell. We know you are.

And if Shanahan has “had a chance to observe” McNabb and Rex Grossman in practice and “observed” that Grossman was more fit to run his two-minute offense with the game on the line, then Shanahan should be fired immediately.

“I’m just saying.”

I decided to check out Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco’s new Versus show last night and while it’s true that T.O. and Ocho have good chemistry (in spurts) and seem to genuinely like each other, I’m not sure there’s a show here.

Here’s the format: Former “SportsCenter” anchor and “Entertainment Tonight” host Kevin Frazier is in a Versus studio while T.O. and Ocho sit side-by-side at a studio somewhere in Cincinnati. Frazier asks the guys questions and they take turns responding. Of course, there’s the typical satellite delay awkwardness and at times one guy talks over the other, but for the most part it goes pretty smoothly.

Topics ranged from the Brett Favre rumors — Owens says that if it were one of them, they’d already be presumed “guilty” by the media…boo-hoo…everybody thinks Favre is guilty, guys — to Ochocinco calling himself out for his poor play this season. The low point of the show was a segment where the duo don doctor’s jackets and discuss the love lives of Jennifer Aniston, Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan. The prescription for each was to start dating T.O. (who mentioned twice that he will be in Los Angeles this week) or Ochocinco, or both. Ugh.

They also struggled reading the prompter when they had to highlights for a few of the show’s segments, but they’ll probably improve in that area as time goes on.

In the end, “The T.Ocho Show” is probably only for the duo’s fans, though there’s plenty of room for improvement.

There are bad days in football and then there’s whatever Joe Flacco just did in Cincinnati today.

In a putrid display of football on Sunday, Joe Flacco was intercepted four times and completed just 17-of-39 passes for 154 yards in a 15-10 loss to the Bengals. At the start of the third quarter, he was 5-of-17 for 23 yards and one pick…yikes.

He did manage to lead the Ravens on an 80-yard scoring drive to start the second half, but everything went downhill again from there. He wound up throwing three of his four picks in the second half when the game was still in reach.

Credit must be given to Bengals’ defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who played a key role in Flacco’s horrendous outing. Following their embarrassing 38-24 loss to the Patriots last weekend, Zimmer took the blame for his defense playing so poorly. But he won’t have to do that this week, as his unit limited Baltimore to only 14 first downs and an average of 3.8 yards per pass completion (which is huge considering that most teams win when their average yards per pass is higher than their opponents’).

That said, while the Bengals’ defense got back on track, their offense was rather stagnant. Carson Palmer finished with a QB Rating of 60.1 on 16-of-35 passing for 167 yards and no touchdowns. Cedric Benson was also limited to 3.4 yards per carry (78 yards on 23 carries), although he was going up against a solid Ravens’ front seven.

On a positive note for the Bengals’ offense, T.O. caught three passes for 57 yards, which included a 29-yard reception. Chad Ochocinco also hauled in four passes for 44 yards and rookie Jordan Shipley got into the act with five catches for 42 yards. Palmer wasn’t very efficient overall, but he did complete passes to seven different receivers and also targeted rookie tight end Jermaine Gresham, who eventually has to get more involved in the passing game.

While I’ll stop short of calling this a statement game for the Bengals, it was important for them to beat a division rival one week after getting smacked by the Patriots. As for Flacco and the Ravens, this certainly played out like a letdown game, which is unfortunate considering Cincinnati is a division foe.