It was that other brilliant but temperamental receiver, Terrell Owens, who overshadowed Moss in 2005. He began the year by heroically returning from a broken ankle in time to play well in the Philadelphia Eagles' Super Bowl loss to the Patriots, completely scuttling his reputation as an egotistical, team-poisoning jerk.

By August, he'd gotten himself thrown out of training camp for whining about his year-old contract and bad-mouthing teammates, particularly popular, good-guy quarterback Donovan McNabb. 2005 was not a year for taking on the good guy. In November Owens was suspended for the maximum four games and deactivated for the remainder of the season following his latest round of carping.

By that time, the Indianapolis Colts had taken over the NFL, winning their first 13 games and clinching home-field advantage throughout the playoffs before finally losing a game without stakes for them to the San Diego Chargers on Dec. 18.

The Colts launched their assault upon the Miami Dolphins' 33-year-old record of being the NFL's only unbeaten, untied champions behind an unabashedly spectacular offense -- but one led by their own aw-shucks quarterback, Peyton Manning, and by receiver Marvin Harrison, as brilliant as he is unflashy, a sort of anti-Terrell.

But the Colts have had offensive firepower for years. They finally turned themselves from pretenders tormented by the Patriots to contenders streaking toward a title the old-fashioned way: with a tough, bruising defense. Only fitting for a team coached by Tony Dungy, who is, of course -- this being 2005 and all -- a no-nonsense, defense-minded boss.

Sadly, the Colts' glorious year was marred by tragedy just before Christmas, when Dungy's 18-year-old son, James, was found dead of an apparent suicide.

The pitcher who went one better than Randy Johnson was Kenny Rogers of the Texas Rangers. Johnson at least had the excuse, however lame, that he'd been accosted by a camera on a city street. Rogers was in uniform, on the field before a game, and the local news cameraman he attacked had as much right as Rogers did to be where he was.

Rogers became a pariah, booed at the All-Star Game and savaged in the press, which makes sense, one of its own having been attacked. But when a celebrity can't get the people on his side in a beef with the intrusive media, something's afoot.

Another important thing happened in that busy month of January, between those two championship football games: Major League Baseball announced a new steroid testing plan with stiffer punishments for offenders. It was the start of baseball's Year of the Steroid.

In February, Jose Canseco confessed to -- or bragged about -- having been the Johnny Appleseed of steroids in the late '80s and early '90s. In his book, "Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big," he wrote of teaching teammates such as Mark McGwire and Rafael Palmeiro all about performance-enhancing drugs, and even about shooting up some teammates with hypodermic needles in bathroom stalls.

At the time, Canseco was largely dismissed as a bitter attention whore telling tall tales. Within a few months, he was starting to look like the only honest man in the room.

The new program yielded suspensions for steroid use for the first time. Journeyman outfielder Alex Sanchez of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays was the first to get dinged for 10 days. Every few weeks another no-namer's name would be announced, he'd issue a wan denial -- must have been something mixed up in the stuff I got at the GNC -- and then he'd serve his 10 days. It looked for a while like the program would only catch small fish.

But only for a while.

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