Wes Hopkins

Eagles career: Drafted by the Eagles in the second round of the 1983 NFL draft, Hopkins played his entire 11-year career in Philadelphia and built a lasting reputation as one of the hardest-hitting safeties to have ever played in the league. In addition to being recognized as a first team All-Pro in 1985, Hopkins made the Pro Bowl that same year after a career season in which he posted six interceptions - one returned for a touchdown - and a pair of sacks. He finished his career with 30 interceptions and 12 sacks.

Eagles free safety Wes Hopkins said yesterday that he was having second thoughts about his decision earlier this week to fire his agent, but he said he remained certain that he would report to training camp on July 17 even though he is attempting to renegotiate his contract. "Right now, the agent business is back up in the air," said Hopkins, who was in the late stages of a complicated renegotiation of his contract when he announced Tuesday that he had decided to fire agent Mike Sullivan and replace him with Harry Himes.

Now comes the story of one man's struggle against not one but two monoliths. It is the continuing saga of Wes Hopkins versus the National Football League, Wes Hopkins versus Monday Night Football. You sort of know who is going to win. About now it would be appropriate to wonder, since the football season is so long over, how much can it matter to anyone that on a Monday night four months ago, Hopkins clobbered a little Houston receiver from here to Kansas, and thus brought down upon himself the formidable wrath of Dan Dierdorf and NFL justice - in that order.

Wes Hopkins had that old Pro Bowl grin on his face after yesterday's 17-10 Eagles victory over the Cincinnati Bengals. He'd made not one but two interceptions, a feat he hadn't accomplished since the 1988 season. "Against Dallas," he said, still smiling. Defensive backs don't forget days like that. Yesterday, Hopkins intercepted two more passes than he pulled down in the entire 1989 season. That boosted his total this season to four, which makes the wily veteran the team leader in that category.

Well, what did you expect? NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue has notified Eagles safety Wes Hopkins that the $7,500 fine levied against him last season for a forearm shot that broke the nose of Houston Oilers receiver Ernest Givins will stand. Hopkins received his "Dear Wes . . . " from the commissioner on Monday. Tagliabue heard Hopkins' appeal personally last month. The forearm shot in question occurred on a nationally televised Monday night game on Dec. 2 that the Eagles won by 13-6.

Wes Hopkins looks down at the mystery that is his knee, and when he looks back, you can see the worry etched across his face. The Eagles' 30-year-old free safety is at a career crossroads. The relatively routine question of whether or not his injured left knee is sturdy enough to play on in Sunday's game against the Washington Redskins has become a critical one. The rest of his pro football career hangs in the balance. The nine-year veteran knows that this might be his last chance to play on a championship contender.

Travel into the bowels of the Vet, through the hollow green corridors from which the Eagles' coaches have vanished for a month-long vacation, past the city workers cleaning the locker-room carpet, and you can hear the occasional clang of iron in the team's cramped weight room. There you will find free safety Wes Hopkins, who has been wearing green and white longer than any current Eagle, fighting the lonely fight back from knee surgery. At 31, after nine up-and-down seasons in the NFL, Hopkins is a man without a team.

Andre Waters is rarely at a loss for words, but in the visitors' locker room yesterday, he just couldn't do it. He tried, but with his season - and perhaps the Eagles' Super Bowl hopes - suddenly endangered by an injury to his left leg, he just couldn't find the words. "I'm sorry," he said, a plaster cast still hardening on his lower leg. "I don't know anything yet. I'd rather not talk now. " Waters, the ninth-year pro who starts at strong safety for the Eagles, could be out for the season with a fractured bone suffered when he tackled Ricky Ervins on a run in the third quarter.

When the Eagles recovered the fumble that opened the last door to victory in Sunday's dramatic football game with the Cleveland Browns, free safety Wes Hopkins threw off his green parka and ran out on the field to see who had the ball with his own eyes. Some things are just too good to be true. Hopkins had watched with disbelief on the frigid sidelines, hopping from foot to foot, trying to keep warm, as that hotdog Browns receiver, Webster Slaughter, wandered back, back, back to the goal line under Jeff Feagles' monumental 61-yard punt.

Wes Hopkins officially will put behind him a brilliant 10-year Eagles career when he signs a one-year contract with the Kansas City Chiefs today. Harry Himes, Hopkins's agent, and Dennis Thum, the Chiefs' assistant general manager, worked out a carefully structured agreement Saturday following Hopkins's workout for Chiefs officials and coaches on Friday. "We've reached an agreement in principle and a signing is imminent," Himes said yesterday. Himes, as part of the deal with KC, would not disclose terms of the contract.

NATE ALLEN had three interceptions. He had started every game of his rookie season. He had begun to replace legendary safety Brian Dawkins in the minds of Eagles fans, if not in their hearts. He was the centerpiece of a dynamic rookie class of defenders. But on the flight home from Nashville, Tenn., where the Eagles collapsed and gave away a win, Allen slunk in his seat and wondered how he'd played so badly. "I flat-out had a lot of mistakes in that game. Gave up a lot of touchdowns," Allen said.

A dozen facts and figures about the Eagles-Lions game: 1. The Eagles have the second-best record in the NFL after a loss since 2000, at 35-16-1. Only New England has a better winning percentage, with a record of 32-13. 2. The Eagles under Andy Reid have a 14-5 record against NFC North teams, including 7-3 on the road. They are 2-0 against the Lions. 4. Since 2000, the Eagles have the second-best road record in the NFL in the regular season at 51-28-1, a .644 winning percentage.

The Eagles scored on their first possession for the seventh time in 12 games. They're 6-1 in those games. David Akers' missed 39-yard field goal attempt at the end of the first half snapped a streak of 17 consecutive made field goals. Sheldon Brown, who notched his fifth interception in the third quarter, and Asante Samuel are the first Eagles tandem to each record five or more interceptions in the same season since Eric Allen and Wes Hopkins did it in 1991. They're the first pair of Eagles corners to do it since at least 1950, when the NFL first started distinguishing defensive backs as cornerbacks and safeties.

Eagles career: Drafted by the Eagles in the second round of the 1983 NFL draft, Hopkins played his entire 11-year career in Philadelphia and built a lasting reputation as one of the hardest-hitting safeties to have ever played in the league. In addition to being recognized as a first team All-Pro in 1985, Hopkins made the Pro Bowl that same year after a career season in which he posted six interceptions - one returned for a touchdown - and a pair of sacks. He finished his career with 30 interceptions and 12 sacks.

Otis Smith and Mike Caldwell are the two rarest birds on the Eagles' coaching staff. In fact, they are a rare breed throughout the NFL. Hired this off-season by coach Andy Reid, Smith and Caldwell are the only two members of the team's 21-man coaching staff who have also played in the NFL. The fact that the Eagles have so few former NFL players on their coaching staff is not an unusual league trend, and there's good reason for it. "It's tough...

54 -- Peters, Floyd | Defensive Tackle | With Eagles: 1964-69, Discarded by three teams before becoming an Eagle for six seasons, Peters reached the Pro Bowl in 1965, 1967 and 1968 - a very good player on not-so-good teams. Recruited by Dick Vermeil at UCLA, the three-time all-American was the Eagles' first-round pick in 1979, won NFL defensive-rookie-of-the- year honors, and led the Birds in tackles three times. Having played neither high school nor college football, Ferrante emerged from the Philadelphia sandlots to become a dangerous two-way end, with 31 TDs among his 169 career receptions.

This is truly a homecoming for Jacksonville Jaguars strong safety Donovin Darius. A graduate of Woodrow Wilson High in Camden, Darius will play in Philadelphia for the first time in his nine-year NFL career when the Jags visit the Eagles on Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field. Darius also will be reunited with his former teammate at Syracuse, Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb. The Jaguars safety has staged a successful comeback after suffering a season-ending left knee injury in the second game of last season in Indianapolis.

It's possible to predict the future. No, we can't tell you whether this fascinating Eagles season is going to end on the first day of February at Houston's Reliant Stadium. We can, however, tell you what's going to happen a month or so after Super Bowl XXXVIII. March madness. It's a Philadelphia tradition that has nothing to do with regional brackets and the Final Four. It has everything to do with football decisions, free agents, and possibly the final year for four popular Eagles.

With two of the three phases of the NFL off-season over, the Eagles have a few months to patch the remaining holes in their roster. The Eagles have added 10 notable players, two in the first stage of free agency and eight in the draft, to the team that went 11-5 and reached the NFC championship game last season. They have lost three starters from the defense that carried them while their offense developed during the regular season. They have replaced strong safety Damon Moore and weakside linebacker Mike Caldwell with free agents, and have a question mark at middle linebacker.

One thing leads to another. First quarter, Eagles up by 7-0. Chargers quarterback Doug Flutie threw a line drive over the middle for wide receiver Tim Dwight. The ball intersected Dwight's path at the very moment Dwight's path crossed that of Eagles safety Brian Dawkins. It sounded like a car crash. It looked like the hits Andre Waters and Wes Hopkins used to put on receivers early in games, sending the message that the middle of the field was not a very pleasant place to be. The crowd at the Vet loved it, of course.