Doug Williams, Waters Have Made Up

“Andre and I might kiss each other when the game is over,” Doug Williams said. “You never can tell.”

It would be a new record for detente, even for the City of Brotherly Love, if the Washington Redskins’ quarterback and his bete noire, Andre Waters, even shook hands--before or after the game at Philadelphia today.

“Andre don’t stick around to shake hands after a game,” Williams said. “You ever notice? He’s the first one off the field.

“But he’s all right,” Williams said. “We haven’t been to dinner, or anything like that, but I have no hard feelings for him.”

A year ago, Williams’ feelings for the Eagles’ aggressive safety were about as hard as human feelings get. He was vocally hoping for the opportunity to do grievous bodily harm to “that cheap-shot artist.”

“Andre and I talked a long time after the last game,” Williams said. “He apologized. We got it straight. Turns out he was a Doug Williams fan. He grew up in Florida.”

Waters, 28, was playing football for Pahokee High when Williams was the rookie quarterback for a Tampa Bay team beginning its third season of existence with a 2-26 history.

Williams was asked whether Waters had apologized for the physical outrages he attempted on Williams in the game at Philadelphia last season or the oral nastiness that went with it. He was quoted as saying Williams had “no class.”

“Did he say that?” Williams asked. “I don’t remember. And if I said I wanted to hurt him it must have been immediately after the game. I was angry for a little while.”

The peace talk took place in the cavernous basement of RFK Stadium, after the Eagles’ shocking 42-37 victory on Sept. 17. Williams was waiting outside the Eagles’ locker room for his old friend Jimmy Giles. The 35-year-old tight end suffered through the formative days at Tampa Bay with Williams, and they were the leaders of the way to an NFC title game in 1979.

“Jimmy had told me Andre was a good guy,” Williams recalled, “and he called him over to talk. We didn’t get involved about the woofing.”

“Woofing” Williams defined approximately as “talking dirt.”

Williams made it clear he does not expect the accord to stop Waters from going for his throat as he searches for a receiver. “We’re athletes,” Williams said, “and Andre is an aggressive player. There are no friends on the field. They flip the coin and peace flies out the window.

“Reggie White (the Eagles’ one-man gang along the defensive line) is a minister and he tries to kill guys,” Williams said. “I don’t think Andre Waters would shake hands with his brother after a game.”

Williams is not the only Redskin who has wished to inflict bodily harm upon Waters. His cheap-shot reputation grew last year when he was fined $1,500 for an unsuccessful attempt to “spear” Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jim Everett’s knee (though the officials in the game saw no evil).

When Redskins kicker Jess Atkinson was carried away with a wrecked ankle in the opening game of 1987, the finger he was shaking was pointed at Andre “Dirty” Waters. Atkinson never got his job back, or any other kicking job.

Whether it was the deed or the “woofing,” Williams was moved to take a swing at Waters in that game last year. He later suggested the commissioner “take him out of a game or two.”

Waters, Williams said, was “messing with Ashley’s (his 6-year-old daughter’s) education. I told him, ‘I ain’t no punk.”

It was evident in the first week of September this year that Waters was the guy most Redskins loved to hate. Polled by a droll Washington television team to name the player at whom they’d most like to have “a clear shot,” they elected Waters in a landslide. Even defensive players, never on the field with Waters, voted to have a piece of him.

Now that Williams has determined that Waters is an all-right dude, has he notified his vengeful teammates? “I can only have my own opinion,” Williams said. “I’m not going to tell them he’s a louse or that he’s a man.

“We’re going to play football.”

The Eagles are solid five-point favorites this time, not only because the Redskins are wounded and floundering but also because Philadelphia’s offense must be better.

Randall Cunningham threw 46 times in that crazy game because there was nothing else to do. With Anthony Toney hurt in the second quarter, the Eagles’ running game was nil. They gained 65 yards on the ground, averaging 2.3 a carry.

Since then, even with Keith Byars more of a receiver than a runner, they have raised their rushing average to 4.2, same as Washington’s.

If Cunningham worried the Skins’ defense last time, he should terrorize them now. He is, of course, the Eagles’ leading rusher, with a 6.3 average for 60 carries.