The 49ers need players like Terrell Owens if they are going to recapture the swagger of their glory days.

Just what was Terrell Owens thinking in the middle of Texas Stadium, arms raised in triumph? Doesn't he know the 1-3 Niners are a mere shadow of the team they once were and that his demonstration flies directly in the face of their dignified image? And doesn't he know that this is a society that demands false modesty, especially from its athletes?

Apparently he does.

"Everybody has their own style," Owens said after starting a near-riot with his post-TD celebration. "I play with a lot of emotion and I'd definitely do it again." Okay, I'm not saying straddling that big blue star in the middle of the field was the most effective use of Owens' emotion, and he probably deserved to get smacked by Dallas safety George Teague. The one-week suspension, which will cost him $24,294, is also warranted. But maybe the Niners need a little more of Owens' attitude.

Just like they needed Ricky Watters. One morning during the '92 season, Watters entered the San Francisco locker room to find a copy of the team picture with his face plastered over everyone else's. Underneath the photo, someone had scrawled, "I'm the whole team." Watters -- an outspoken, demonstrative type -- is also quite sensitive and was visibly upset. At the next team meeting, coach George Seifert cautioned the pranksters and clarified Watters' place in the organization. "Regardless of what you think of him," Seifert told the team in a closed-door meeting, "Ricky Watters gives this team its energy."

While being one of the proudest franchises in all of sports, the Niners can also be elitist and bit too professional for their own good. Since Watters' departure in '96, they've sorely lacked that swagger -- that us-against-the-world instinct -- that made them invincible in their march to the Super Bowl in '95. Now that Steve Young spends his afternoons speaking at conservative conventions and Jerry Rice is no longer the team's primary weapon (Sunday's four-catch, 73-yard, two-TD performance notwithstanding), the Niners are just another team hoping to reach .500. They desperately need someone to give them life again, someone to remind the rest of the league that this team will not only win games, but take your heart and dance on your field in the process. Owens is that guy. That he knows. But does Steve Mariucci?

Alan Grant covers the NFL for ESPN The Magazine.