Fort Worth, Texas ? Always the drama.

But this is what you get when you employ a drama queen like Terrell Owens.

His adolescent tantrums must be tended to. His voracious ego must be fed.

With Terrell Owens, it is always about Terrell Owens, and the next teammate, agent, owner or head coach that tries to make you think otherwise is a fool.

A documented fool, as we now know, once and for all.

In the annals of this storied franchise, this past week was a new low — a star player accusing the young quarterback of purposely ignoring him and then heatedly arguing with the team’s Pro Bowl tight end, all as the Dallas Cowboys were supposed to be preparing for a game that could make or break their season.

Hourly reports on ESPN. The lead item on all the national sports shows. Owens’ gasbag agent, Drew Rosenhaus, going on TV to say, “There really wasn’t any controversy whatsoever.”

What’s next? A Cowboys skit on “Saturday Night Live”?

How embarrassing.

Tom Landry, Tex Schramm and Clint Murchison must be turning in their graves.

But this is what you invite when you bite into a poison apple like Owens. The Cowboys have loyal legions of fans by the millions. But the rest of the nation’s sports fans laughed at the franchise all week.

Nice job, Jerry Jones.

Nice signing of Owens. Nice hiring of Wade Phillips, the den master coach. Nice train wreck of a season, after all the lofty expectations and after so much of Jones’ money spent.

Of course, they are blaming the media for all this. Jones and Phillips want you to believe that the TV cameras in Pittsburgh didn’t really show Owens berating assistant coach Ray Sherman as he came off the field. They want you to think that three receivers marching into Jason Garrett’s office to complain about the quarterback is business as usual. And they want you to ignore the fact that Rosenhaus, Owens’ insufferable apologist, confirmed the whole thing.

But this is what happens when money is no object and the owner assembles a cast of characters without regard for how the personalities might mesh.

There are lots of good guys, solid professionals, to be found in the Cowboys’ locker room, and the list starts with Jason Witten, the alleged ball-hogging tight end.

But when Rosenhaus goes on ESPN and says, “I think Terrell has been a model professional,” I can’t help but laugh.

Owens is a self-obsessed fool with a persecution complex. He seems to think everyone is against him, and now his list includes Witten and Tony Romo.

Jones has held the belief that the volume of well-behaved characters in the locker room would self-police the occasional odd malcontent.

That only works, however, if the team has strong leaders and a head coach with a backbone.

Without leaders, the odd bug can grow into a virus, and soon you’re in the third-to-last week of the season and, instead of calling a team meeting to discuss the New York Giants, you’re circling the wagons to get your stories straight.

The media is making it all up? Nobody could make this stuff up.

But this is what you get when you sign, pay and empower a self-absorbed, not-very-smart crybaby like Owens.

Always the drama.