If we're all really lucky — and the football people at Rams Park are even remotely as smart as I think they are — then the next 48 hours in Earth City ought to be far more fascinating (and twice as productive) than the previous 48 for your St. Louis Rams.

Thankfully, their brief weekend flirtation with the always controversial (and obviously over-the-hill) Terrell Owens is now behind them, so the Rams' football wise guys can now devote all of their available time and efforts into making sure that Sam Bradford's signature is on a new contract before two-a-days commence Thursday morning.

And while they're at it, they might want to protect his flank and make sure that second-round pick Roger Saffold is locked up, too. Those are the simple and important priorities for a struggling franchise trying desperately to become relevant again. There will be a time when it makes sense to have a provocative curiosity with a character like Owens, but the Rams aren't there yet. Not even close.

In case anyone forgot, this isn't a Rams team looking to put the final pieces of a championship puzzle together. There's no small punch list of minor repairs to be done. This is a struggling franchise coming off a 1-15 disaster. This version of T.O. might sell a lot of new No. 81 Rams jerseys, but he wouldn't transform the Rams from the worst team in the league into an overnight sensation bound for the top of the NFC West. So there was no need to take this beyond that curiosity, because this Rams regime has to know the silliness of chasing after over-the-hill big names like Owens only works in fantasy leagues and video games.

Pro football has a long, rich history of iconoclasts and slightly eccentric madmen who relish living just outside the lines of convention. Whether it's the raucous Raiders of the 1970s, the Super Bowl shufflin' Chicago Bears of the '80s or the bawdy Dallas Cowboys of any generation — heck, you can go all the way back to pro football's leather helmet Jurassic days — there is ample evidence of folks who walk on the wild side.

But for every crazy character and goofball who slipped on Raider silver and black (see: Ted Hendricks riding a horse into practice) or clowned around at the Bears' practice facility (see: Mike Ditka rollerblading through Halas Hall) or night-crawled around Dallas (see: Don Meredith, Michael Irvin) or New York (see: Joe Namath, Lawrence Taylor), there's always one unabiding rule that has been in play across every football generation:

If you are talented enough, your eccentricities are tolerated.

"But the minute your troubles outweigh your talent," says former NFL coach Herman Edwards, "that's when you're no longer needed."

Everyone in pro football understands that simple rule. That's why Owens has managed to flourish as one of the most talented and emotionally combustible wide receivers the NFL has ever seen. Over 15 years with four teams, Owens has made six Pro Bowls and will no doubt end up in the pro football Hall of Fame.

His talent has always bought him second chances no matter how many locker rooms he has fractured. He is a coach killer and a notorious pain in the butt who has sabotaged every quarterback he's ever played for.

But because he was so darned talented, he was always given another chance. That's why he bounced from good team to good team, always making more Pro Bowls, always enhancing every offense he played for. That T.O. would have been worth the risk for the Rams, even in their fragile rebuilding state, because the Owens of five years ago was that darned good.

But the Terrell Owens of today is over the hill. Thankfully, the Rams figured that out before they inserted him into their locker room like some fatal computer virus.

"It's very well documented about the effect (Owens) has on teams," former NFL coach and current television analyst Brian Billick said on my WXOS (101.1 FM) radio show Monday. "There seems to be an aura or stigma that runs around him. If I am the Rams, the question I have is how much better does he really make us? Do you want to saddle a young developing quarterback like Sam Bradford with someone who several veteran quarterbacks couldn't handle?"

The minute Billick heard the rumors about Owens to the Rams, he started thinking the same thing most of us did. You have to have strong leadership and a proven championship environment around T.O. if you expect him to thrive. "He is a handful," said Billick. "You clearly have to have a team that can absorb that and teach him, 'This is the way we do it.' ... I don't know if the St. Louis Rams are at that point in their progression. I don't know if (the Rams team leadership) is strong enough to offset what I'd say is a particularly unique working relationship with T.O."

I agree, and apparently so did the Rams. They maintain that their interest in Owens was not quite as serious as some media reports made it out to be. Let's hope that's right. And let's also hope that their priorities are in order. Let's hope that instead of wasting time with a useless pursuit of a toxic over-the-hill player who can do more harm than good, that they have instead expended their best efforts in ensuring that the No. 1 overall pick and future franchise quarterback is signed, sealed and delivered in time for the start of camp.

Getting Bradford in camp on time could be the difference between him becoming the next Andre Ware or the next Peyton Manning. Careers are ruined by rookie QBs missing time. Every day he misses from camp is one more obstacle that will make it that much more imposing for Bradford to help the Rams immediately.

If general manager Billy Devaney and team president Kevin Demoff want to continue to distance themselves from the previous failed regimes that helped create this sorry mess at Rams Park, they will make certain that Bradford (and Saffold) will be in camp from Day One.