The Comeback Nobody Was Watching: Quez Watkins Is Turning Heads

A year ago, Quez Watkins spent his Sundays in street clothes, buried on the practice squad, wondering if the league had already made up its mind about him. On Wednesday afternoon at the NovaCare Complex, he spent the day making everybody in green rethink it.

On a lighter Day 6 — a non-padded, 75-minute session that came after back-to-back days in full pads — Watkins produced one of the biggest highlights of the practice. A receiver who didn’t take a regular-season snap for this team last fall is suddenly forcing his way into a conversation nobody expected him to be part of. And around here, that’s the kind of story that matters, because South Jersey knows something about being written off and showing up anyway.

Why it’s happening now

DeVonta Smith is on the shelf with a hamstring, and when Smith goes down, the whole receiver room reshuffles. Dontayvion Wicks has quickly become Jalen Hurts’ favorite target in Smith’s absence, and that’s a real development in its own right. But the injury also cracked open a door, and Watkins — the guy who was supposed to be a camp body — walked right through it. The Eagles didn’t just stand still and hope, either; they signed wideout Brandon Hayes this week, which tells you the coaching staff is taking the depth question seriously while Smith heals. That’s competition, plain and simple. Every rep Watkins wins is a rep somebody else doesn’t get.

And the man throwing it is having fun

Meanwhile, the Eagles have been turning Hurts loose as a runner in recent practices, letting him keep the ball on zone-reads and take off when the lane opens. Some of that is scheme experimentation in the low-stakes weeks of camp. But some of it is a reminder that when this offense is humming, Hurts with his legs is one of the hardest problems in football to solve. A defense that has to respect the quarterback run leaves windows open for a guy like Watkins to slip into. Not everything was sunshine — outside linebacker Jonathan Greenard remains on the Active/PUP list with a pec strain, and the pass rush needs him healthy for what this team wants to do in January.

South Jersey builds people like that. The kid who gets cut from the varsity and comes back twice as good. The worker who gets passed over and outlasts everybody who doubted him.Samuel Banks

In a camp full of established names and big contracts, the guy generating buzz on a sleepy Wednesday is a former practice-squad receiver playing like his career depends on it — because it does. Now he’s got pads, a number and a diminishing window to prove the doubters wrong. He’s not wasting it.

Based on reporting from Yahoo Sports, ESPN, Bleeding Green Nation, NBC Sports Philadelphia, and PhillyVoice.