Everyone knows Terrell Owens is an emotionally unstable narcissist bent on personal and teamwide destruction. That impression is perfectly accurate. But he did something relatively helpful last week when an ESPN writer got hit by a car following the taping of the ESPY Awards. So a delusional Cowboys fan can at least offer a brief counterpoint about how Owens isn't a total dick before you laugh them off. We always strive for balance.

From Sam Alipour's retelling of the episode:

So, this is what getting hit by a car feels like.

When I came to, I was on the sidewalk, my shoulder hurting like crazy, shards of glass in my forearm and blood dripping from my fingers, while limo drivers and other witnesses screamed this way and that. The paramedics told me I was lucky to be alive ("Last time I saw a windshield like that," said one, "guy lost both his legs"), and all I could think was, "Damn! I just bought this Banana Republic tie-and-shirt ensemble!"

That, and "Holy crap, that's T.O.!"

Terrell Owens was standing over me. I'm told he was the first do-gooder on the scene of the accident. That he helped me to my feet and off the street to safe ground. That he didn't leave my side. It seems the mercurial Dallas Cowboys receiver is my hero. But my hero looks scared, and this scares me.

"Wow, you all right, man?" Owens kept asking me, but in a manner that would suggest there is no possible way that I, in fact, could be all right. "Don't move. Just sit there. Breathe. Don't move."

It seems like, between the peaks of supreme douchiness, T.O. is good for an admirable act every four years or so. I remember watching him playing well while injured in Super Bowl XXXIX thinking that it would forever alter the way I thought about the selfish asshole. But at the first sight of his typical antics, the hate returned unchanged. That's the good thing about hate, it doesn't surprise you. Well, except for the unspeakable acts it leads you to commit. Those are a welcome surprise.