'It's Time to Put on a Show' for Quez Watkins
DALLAS - While speed is the most obvious trait of Eagles' second-year receiver Quez Watkins, the stopwatch is hardly the only thing that the Southern Miss product brings to the field.
"It's not just a fast guy," Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said of his big-play wideout who hooked up with Jalen Hurts for a 91-yard gain in last week's loss to San Francisco, one in which Watkins reached 21.62 MPH per the NFL's NextGen Stats, the fastest time of any player through two weeks.
"Sometimes my experience with really fast guys is - I don't want to say always, but sometimes the stereotype of them is they're not tough or they don't catch the ball well. Well, that doesn't apply to Quez Watkins."
Watkins is a fast guy in a fast guy's league, clocking in the low 4.3s in the 40-yard dash and topping the whole NFL in speed with that 21.62 MPH through the first two weeks.
By Sunday night, San Francisco running back Trent Cannon edged Watkins by hitting 21.7 MPH on a 68-yard kickoff return.
Sirianni isn't so much focused on Watkins' speed when he reveals what has jumped out to him about his second-year receiver.
"I think he's solid catching the football," Sirianni, a former WR himself said. "He's got good, strong hands. He can go up and get the deep ball. I think we've seen that in practice quite a bit where he just goes up and makes a play.
"He ran right by the guy the other day [against the 49ers] and Jalen put a perfect ball in there, so it wasn't necessary for him to go up and get it, but we know that he can.
"I think he's tough, I think he's scrappy, and just my experience is that you've got tough, scrappy guys, they're going to get better, and they're going to - and they're reliable. I love that about him."
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Maybe the best part of Watkins is that he wasn't accepting pats on the back after his explosive play, instead lamenting that he wasn't able to finish and get in the end zone, a turning point of the 17-11 setback because the Philadelphia offense couldn't punch it in.
“I definitely feel like I should have scored on that one,” Watkins said Saturday. “But things happen, and I didn’t.”
With the Eagles backed up on the play, Watkins sped by 49ers rookie corner Deommodore Lenoir and Hurts hit him in stride past the Philadelphia 40-yard line and the race was on.
Quez Watkins
Lenoir was in the dust but veteran safety Jaquiski Tartt took the right angle across the field to first trip Watkins before the 10-yeard line and the 23-year-old WR went down at the 6.
“[I was] really trying to track the ball in the sun and as soon as I caught it I was trying to leave him,” Watkins said. “But [Tartt] had a good angle on me, so he got me.”
The momentum change was significant when the 49ers rebounded to keep the Eagles off the scoreboard, a stand that finished with Sirianni's ill-conceived and admittedly "gadgety" Philly Unspecial where the Philadelphia coach expected man coverage and got zone, stifling a planned throw from Greg Ward back to Hurts.
“Before the play, we were in the huddle for a minute, it was a TV timeout,” Watkins explained. “Jalen was talking and going over the play and he just kept talking to me, just making sure I was on point before the play, and he said, ‘Hey, this is 98 yards, get in the end zone.’ “And when I didn’t, he was so mad at me.
"But at the end of the day, it’s something we have to grow on, something we have to learn from and be better.”
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The WR had to hear about it all week from his teammates who kidded with him on why he didn't score.
"Jokingly, they were saying it was my fault why we didn't score in the red zone, we could've gone just one play and out but Quez wants to be slow, stuff like that," he said, "but they were joining around, having fun with it."
On a personal level, Watkins had his first career 100-yard receiving game (117) against the 49ers and easily leads the team with a gaudy 28.0 YPR with five catches for 140 yards over the first two games.
He's also played 49 percent of the offensive snaps, firmly establishing himself as the WR3 behind DeVonta Smith and Jalen Reagor.
Being a consistent part of the offense is what's most important for Watkins.
“It’s very important,” he said. “Being relevant, staying relevant, that’s the biggest thing in this league as a professional. Everybody’s good, everybody can perform week in and week out, but who is going to consistently do that?”
Doing that in a stand-alone matchup on Monday night against Dallas, the franchise's biggest rival, is the next step.
“It’s prime time,” Watkins said. “That says it itself. It’s a prime-time game, it’s a rivalry game, a division game. So it’s time to put on a show.”
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-John McMullen contributes Eagles coverage for SI.com's EagleMaven and is the NFL Insider for JAKIB Media. You can listen to John, alongside legendary sports-talk host Jody McDonald every morning from 8-10 on ‘Birds 365,” streaming live on both PhillyVoice.com and YouTube. John is also the host of his own show "Extending the Play" on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Eagle Maven and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglemaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
