One of the inexplicably biggest non-mainstream media stories in the days leading up to the NFL draft has been whether or not Terrell Owens appears in the background of a photo appearing on a hardcore porn site.

The story has been mentioned by several sites (we noted it in a One-Liner on Tuesday), and most recently A.J. Daulerio of Deadspin pointed out that the photo in question has been cropped to remove the apparent image of Owens.

But now things are getting interesting.  Or just plain f–king weird.

Owens has hired a Florida lawyer to send a nasty letter to TheDirty.com, demanding that the increasingly notorious gossip site “remove the photographs and references from your website, state to your public that these photographs linking Mr. Owens to Porn were not done with his consent, and that Mr. Owens categorically rejects the reference.”

The full text of the letter is right here.

Frankly, our initial reaction was that the letter must have been written by a non-lawyer who was trying to write a letter that appeared to have been written by a lawyer.  The fact, for example, that the letter closes by requesting “confirmation within five days of your receipt of this letter” seems bizarre, given that five days in matters relating to the Internet is like five weeks in non-Internet time.  The lawyer should be requesting an immediate response, and should be outlining specific steps that will be taken if there is no prompt compliance.

Better still, the lawyer should have simply not written the letter.  Because he now has taken an issue that was at most a fading Internet curiosity and threatened to turn it into an issue that ultimately gets picked up by the Associated Press.

By the way, we’ve confirmed that it really is a legitimate letter and that Owens, through the lawyer who sent it, is pursuing the matter.

Our popcorn, as always, is ready.