SI.com's Peter King Terrell Owens probably has gone to the team that, with the possible exception of Dallas, could best handle him. Andy Reid, a mild-mannered, no-crisis guy, is the perfect coach to turn a cancerous player into a team player. • Click here for full story.

Here's my final scorecard on the Terrell Owens case, which was settled by negotiation Tuesday before the NFL's special master handed down a ruling:

• Owens got what he wanted. He's in Philadelphia, just as he demanded to be all along -- with a new, long-term contract and a $10 million signing bonus to show for it.

• The Eagles got what they wanted, the legitimate, big-play No. 1 receiver that their offense has lacked throughout the Donovan McNabb era. For the cost of a fifth-round draft pick and a surplus defensive end, the Eagles might have acquired the player who will nudge them over their NFC title-game hump.

• The 49ers got what they wanted, landing a proven starting defensive end in Brandon Whiting. Given that San Francisco was prepared to let Owens walk away for nothing in free agency just a few weeks ago, it's all gravy. In Whiting, a six-year veteran who won't be 28 until summer, the 49ers arguably ended up with more value than they would have gotten from Baltimore's second-round pick this year.

• The NFL Players Association certainly got what it wanted, helping one of its star players play for the team of his choice for more money, which is the essence of free agency.

• And though no one will admit it on the record, I suspect the NFL and its management council secretly got what it wanted, as well. By Monday afternoon's hearing before the special master, the NFL knew it wasn't going to win its case against Owens, and league sources say the overriding fear was that he would file a lawsuit seeking damages for having missed the financial windfall of the opening two weeks of free agency.

That's why it was far better for everyone in the NFL's Park Avenue office if Owens wound up agreeing to the settlement. That way he could sign a lucrative deal in Philadelphia, drop any demand for total free agency and the whole matter would finally go away without any more lawyers becoming involved.

Which leaves us, dear reader, with the only real loser in this messy affair: The Baltimore Ravens. They're the ones who played by the rules, and wound up paying for it.

Sure, the Ravens received a fifth-round pick from the Eagles for their trouble. And Baltimore has its No. 2 pick back in this year's draft. But the offensively lopsided Ravens still don't have the game-changing, No. 1 receiver that they have desperately craved for the past five seasons. And to make matters worse, Marcus Robinson, the team's leader in receiving touchdowns last season with six, left via free agency while Baltimore was focused on Owens.

The Ravens also didn't get involved in any significant way in the pursuit Seattle free-agent receiver Darrell Jackson, or trade talks with San Diego regarding David Boston. Baltimore didn't think it would have to, given that the league's management council kept assuring it that it had a legal contract with Owens and was a slam dunk to wind up with him.

League to Ravens: "Sorry, Baltimore. You screwed up. You trusted us.'' Only in this case, the role of Otter was played by the council's chagrined lawyers and Flounder was handled by befuddled Ravens general manager Ozzie Newsome.

On Tuesday morning, with the outcome of the Owens' standoff already looking cast in die against the Ravens, I asked Baltimore head coach Brian Billick if the organization had been treated fairly or if it was merely sacrificed for the good of the league?

"Our best interest was obviously not a high priority,'' Billick said. "I think Ozzie got jobbed and I think [new Ravens majority owner] Steve Bisciotti got jobbed. It was almost, 'Welcome to the NFL. This is how it works.' Because there were some assurances given to both of them by the league.

"But at the end of the day, Ozzie Newsome and this organization did everything that the league covenants dictate. We tried to do this by the book, and it's unfortunate in doing so we've left ourselves vulnerable. We definitely missed some opportunities along the way.''

It's not Newsome's style to bellyache over the Owens debacle, and he sets the tone for the Ravens front office. But you can bet that Newsome and Co. are not happy, feeling both cheated and let down by a process that appears to have done a 180 flip at the very end.

Said one Ravens source: "In the end, following the rules cost us a couple weeks in free agency. That's a critical time. Is that worth a fifth-round pick? I don't know. But you could argue that Owens puts us in a favorite's role in our division, even with a second-year quarterback [in Kyle Boller].''

What happened to the NFL's slam-dunk case? Conspiracy theorists in Baltimore might be tempted to think this deal was being brokered between NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw and the management council all along, and that the Ravens never had a chance once it got to the special master stage. Upshaw wins this one on behalf of a high-profile player, getting all the critics who think he's too cozy with the league suits off his back, and the management council looks for the union to lean their way on a future issue to be named later.

But that's probably just Baltimore's well-developed inferiority complex talking. And besides, the NFL only screws with the Raiders like that.

More likely, league sources say the reality is this: The side agreement between the players' union and the management council that moved up the filing deadline for voiding the rest of Owens' 49ers contract from March 2 to Feb. 21 didn't have much in the way of legal legs to stand on.

The union made a strong case that the agreement didn't apply to Owens, because he signed his 49ers contract before the agreement went into affect. The NFL quickly sensed that it wasn't going to win on the basis of moving the filing deadline, and began the process of negotiating a settlement with the NFLPA. The Ravens knew they were cooked Monday afternoon, sources say, as soon as the management council's attorneys didn't exactly leave blood on the witness stand in pleading their case.

"The league has side-letter agreements to side-letter agreements,'' said one veteran club front office executive. "The league doesn't always even know what it's rules are. The deadline was in a side agreement, and that side agreement couldn't stand, because there were other players who signed similar deals at the same time as Owens but they weren't bound by the same date.

"The league had to know it wasn't going to win on the deadline issue. So a settlement was in order.''

Like we said, everybody wins but the Ravens and their frustrated fans, who are back in the familiar territory of lacking a game-breaker in the passing game. By now, Billick is at least used to the position.

"We knew coming into free agency that there was really only one player who represented a real significant upgrade that we could make offensively via free agency, and that was Terrell Owens,'' Billick said. "But had things gone down in the way they should have gone down, with the proper filings and him becoming a free agent, whether we would have gotten him or not is speculation. Our history is not one that shows we pay a premium dollar for free agents.

"So it doesn't take much of an observation to recognize that the chances were that he would not have ended up here. So at the end of the day, we're sitting here really no worse than we were with regards to augmenting our offensive firepower via free agency. But we still have the draft and we still have some mid-level [receivers] to look at.''

Sorry, Baltimore, but we're not really buying that you're no worse for wear. At the end of the day, to use Billick's pet phrase, the Ravens were the only losers in this sorry spectacle of a story. Everybody else got what they wanted.

Don Banks covers pro football for SI.com.