Ricky Watters

Ricky Watters was dressed and ready to go. He was pacing the locker room with a scowl on his face that sent a clear message to anyone thinking of asking his opinion of what happened to his football team yesterday. "I really have no comment," he said as he paced. "I mean, it's ridiculous. I'm not a person who is used to losing. " This is the first year in his NFL life that Watters will not be going to the playoffs. It is his first time on a losing team. And he was not taking it well.

There's nothing like guessing at your stars' psyches. The day after the biggest loss of the season, Eagles coach Ray Rhodes found himself issuing assurances that young quarterback Bobby Hoying would rebound from Sunday's 31-21 loss to the Giants, and that no, he never seriously considered switching quarterbacks in the game. Rhodes also found himself defending running back Ricky Watters, who appeared to pull back from a fourth-quarter pass over the middle that turned into a Hoying interception.

After building a reputation over five NFL seasons for petulance and selfishness, Eagles running back Ricky Watters has been quiet, noncontroversial and downright mature during this, his sixth season. Why? How? He points to his newfound devotion to Christianity. While Watters's lack of pouting and chest-pounding certainly seems divinely inspired, God is getting help from running backs coach Ted Williams, who, perhaps not coincidentally, also happens to be a spiritual man. Yesterday was a perfect example.

Just call him Mr. Congeniality. After last week's tie with Baltimore, which stunk like a loss to the Eagles, running back Ricky Watters left the scene miffed at getting a season-low 12 carries and being pulled in a goal-line situation for Charlie Garner, who scored a touchdown. In his two previous seasons as an Eagle, Watters had become infamous for his sideline rantings and coach-directed demands for the ball. He has been relatively quiet this season. Last week he showed the first signs of the Old Ricky; he stood, hands on hips, after Garner scored, avoided addressing the matter after the game and refused to comment all week.

The wind appears to have shifted. After almost a full year of admitting mistaken player analyses and his culpability for them, Eagles coach Ray Rhodes yesterday sounded a different note. Now, it looks as if it's Rhodes vs. the front office again, as indicated in a preemptive strike from the coach regarding the future of the team's best player. When asked about the likelihood of the Eagles re-signing Pro Bowl running back Ricky Watters when his contract expires in February, and if he felt Watters should be back - if he was considered a part of the team's long-term core - Rhodes responded: "Deservedly so. " Reflecting on the huge price tag Watters likely will sport - around $4 million a year - and the team's penchant for neither issuing huge signing bonuses nor committing to star players on the open market, Rhodes continued: "I think it's important that people understand that when the negotiation part comes down, that's the key thing; when the negotiation comes down.

Ray Rhodes wants Ricky Watters back in 1998. The Eagles' head coach said so yesterday, then placed responsibility squarely on the shoulders of owner Jeffrey Lurie and executive vice president Joe Banner. During his daily meeting with reporters, Rhodes said it was vital for the Eagles to keep a nucleus of players together. Given that Watters carried the ball just 11 times Sunday against Baltimore, the coach was asked if the soon-to-be-free-agent Watters fit into that group.

Eagles kicker Chris Boniol will not suffer the same fate as Tim Watson and Mike Zandofsky, coach Ray Rhodes said yesterday. Even though Boniol has missed six of his last 13 field-goal attempts, including a 40-yarder that would have won Sunday's game against the Baltimore Ravens in overtime, Rhodes said his job was safe this season. Watson and Zandofsky were unceremoniously released after playing poorly earlier in the year. "I feel he'll be able to work his way out of it," Rhodes said of Boniol.

No other ending could have been as appropriate. The Eagles' latest debacle finished with the field goal unit improperly taking the field; the offensive unit drawing a procedure penalty; then the field goal unit re-taking the field and kicker Chris Boniol missing a 40-yard field goal into a gusting wind. The resulting 10-10 tie with the Ravens yesterday left the Eagles a half-step back in their dying playoff dream, but it perfectly framed the misspent year. This isn't the NHL, where a tie on the road gets you a point, for which you are grateful, and where sub-.

Ricky Watters jammed his clothes deep into his duffel bag and laughed ruefully. It was a laugh of resignation, and it dispelled any doubts that the Eagles' best player was disgusted with his football team. Minutes after his most unproductive game of the season - 11 carries for 37 yards, four receptions for 33 yards - Watters made it clear he doesn't know why he suddenly has a diminished, almost nonexistent, role in the offense. And, if the tenor of his remarks was any indication of his feelings, he doesn't care anymore, either.

Merton Hanks has played a lot of football, seven years in the NFL, and he never had seen what he saw last night. A ball squirted loose from Ricky Watters's hands and onto the Veterans Stadium turf. "On turf, you expect the ball to go down, hit, roll and come back up," the 49ers' free safety said after San Francisco's 24-12 victory over the Eagles last night. "That ball hit and stuck like there was a magnet attached to it. It just died. " This was in the first quarter on the first series of what would become a very long night for an Eagles team whose season hit the turf and just died, too. Starting with the magnet ball, the Eagles got few breaks, and made none for themselves either.