For many years, the Cincinnati Bengals fans were frustrated with the team. One year, they would have a successful campaign, then forget to do so for the next few years. After a winning 2009 season with a wild-card appearance, the fans were ready to accept the inevitable. But then, the team signed veteran wide receiver Terrell Owens. The Hall of Fame-bound’s recent performances and injury risks were concerns for a franchise looking to rebound. But one thing anyone ever knew about Owens was that he would play through the pain; the Bengals learned it, too.

“They had Troy Polamalu,” Owens recalled in an interview he shared on his official YouTube channel. “He was the force on defense, like everywhere. He was kind of equivalent to how I was on offense. You had to know where he was at all times. And so we knew he was a big disruptor on the defensive side of the ball.

“That week, I broke my hand in practice, but we didn’t let anybody know. They just put a brace, a little pad underneath my glove, and I played in the game.”

The incident took place in Week 9 of what would be Owens’ only NFL season with the Bengals. The Pittsburgh Steelers were rolling into Paycor Stadium with arguably the most disruptive safety the game had ever produced: Troy Polamalu. But he wasn’t the only problem that week. Owens, at that point, had become the Bengals’ entire offense, and rightly so. However, losing him against a hated rival would’ve been much worse for the outcome of the game.

What followed was yet another gutsy performance of Terrell Owens’ career, and at the age of 37!

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He caught 10 passes for 141 yards and two touchdowns. It was his second-highest yardage output of the season, tied for his season-high in catches. What’s more interesting is that Owens, who played with the Buffalo Bills a season ago, had dropped his performance to just 50 percent of the targeted receptions. Meanwhile, he always had a lesser load to carry with the Bengals. But he also knew that they had taken a chance on him, and he was ready to pay them back.

The injury even shows up in the film.

Every time he was brought down, Owens didn’t push himself up the way receivers, or anyone really, would typically do (hands flat, weight forward). Instead, he pushed on his wrist to get up.

Cincy still lost that game 27-21, the fifth loss in what would turn out to be a 10-game losing streak. But Owens was a huge part of at least making that game interesting enough and giving the Bengals a chance to win. The Bengals finished the season bottom of the AFC North table. Those two scores, on a broken hand, were the last multi-touchdown game of Owens’ entire NFL career. It all went down from there.

In December, Owens landed on the injury reserve for the first time in his 15-year career. The offseason also brought a torn ACL, surgery in April 2011, and a recovery that cleared him by October. But by then, the league had moved on.

Two preseason games with the Seattle Seahawks in 2012 became the swan song of his NFL career.

Against Troy Polamalu’s Steelers from 2003 onward, Owens averaged 5.8 receptions and 80.6 yards per game in five appearances, scoring four touchdowns. It was a steady production against a defense built specifically to eliminate receivers like him.

That Monday night game wasn’t Owens’ first rodeo with playing wounded either.

Owens may be a diva, but he always put his team before himself

The biggest statement Owens made for his case Hall of Fame came six years before this incident, in his first year with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Seven weeks before Super Bowl XXXIX, during a game against the Dallas Cowboys, Owens fractured his fibula and tore a ligament in his right ankle. A few days later, he had surgery with the surgeon inserting two screws and a plate to stabilize his leg. Of course, the rehabilitation after surgery was long, and orthopedist Mark Myerson would not clear him to play against the Patriots back in 2005 despite good progress. With that, Owens had a decision to make: would he sit or play?

“Nobody in this room knew I was going to play this game,” Owens said after the game via ESPN. “Nobody knew but me.”

The Eagles lost to New England then, but it became one of the strongest reasons why Owens is in the Hall of Fame despite never winning a ring.

He made 9 of 14 catches for 122 yards. He did not score in the 21-24 loss, but it was still a great performance after being sidelined for four previous games and not being in the right shape to play. And this wasn’t the only time he kept his team ahead of his own NFL career.

Back in 2006 with the Dallas Cowboys, he fractured his right ring finger in Week 2 against the Washington Redskins, had a metal plate surgically inserted, and came right back after a fortunate Bye Week.

Weeks later, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones revealed Owens had been playing with a detached tendon on the same finger and had quietly declined elective surgery to keep playing.

But physical toughness was only one dimension of what made Terrell Owens unmissable. The other was his pride; and specifically, what happened when it got provoked. Long before Cincinnati, a scoreless first half in Atlanta produced one of the most famous sideline exchanges in his career, one that quietly planted the seed for a phrase the world would hear years later.

When zero catches lit a fuse in Terrell Owens

The story begins on October 14, 2001. The San Francisco 49ers were at the Georgia Dome for a Week 5 matchup against the Atlanta Falcons. Through two quarters, Owens had not caught a single pass.

He was livid. His wide receivers coach, George Stewart, felt the heat as the team trailed 20-7 at halftime. But reassurances arrived that the Niners would get Owens involved. When they returned to the field, Owens pulled Stewart aside.

“I said, ‘Hey, Stu,’” Owens recalled. “He said, ‘What’s up, big dog?’ I said, ‘All I want to know if you got your popcorn ready.’ He said, ‘What?’ I said, ‘Do you got your popcorn ready? Cause I’m about to put on a show.’”

Owens erupted for three touchdowns: two in regulation and one in overtime to win the game. He finished with 9 catches for 183 yards as San Fran pulled off a stunning 37-31 overtime victory.

That halftime exchange, though, stayed private. Nobody outside that tunnel knew about it. Stewart certainly knew, which is perhaps why Owens chose him as his presenter at his Pro Football Hall of Fame enshrinement 17 years later.

The phrase only went public in 2006. When Owens signed with the Dallas Cowboys and announced to the world: “Get your popcorn ready.” It became so synonymous with him that when he signed his Cowboys contract extension in 2008, the team actually brought out a giant bowl of popcorn to the press conference.

The phrase had found its permanent home in NFL culture. But its real birth, unknown to anyone, had happened in an Atlanta tunnel, before a second half that belonged entirely to Terrell Owens.