Philadelphia Eagles: Quez Watkins is a perfect WR3

Heading into the 2021 NFL season, no one expected all that much from Quez Watkins.

A borderline afterthought in Doug Pederson’s offense who only hauled in seven passes during his rookie season, fans liked the potential of Watkins, his speed, size, and YAC pedigree, but few expected him to become a difference-maker for the Philadelphia Eagles in his second professional season.

Welp, as it turned out, a coaching change was just what the doctor ordered for the pride of Southern Miss, as he not only made the team, but became an unlikely starter come Week 1 following a fantastic camp.

Should he retain his starting spot heading into 2022? Most definitely, but he shouldn’t be the Philadelphia Eagles’ number two wide receiver, as Howie Roseman suggested during his post-postseason media availability. No, in an ideal world/offense, Quez Watkins would be a top-flight WR3 capable of ripping off 50-yard bombs without being force-fed screen after screen after screen as an offensive focal point.

The Philadelphia Eagles need to put Quez Watkins in the best position to succeed in 2022.

Heading into the 2021 season, most everyone expected Jalen Reagor to take a step forward as the Philadelphia Eagles transitioned him inside to become their new playmaking slot receiver.

On paper, the move made sense; DeVonta Smith was largely expected to play the same basic role Reagor filled the season prior, and having a role of making plays with the ball in his hands was more important than running a crisp route tree theoretically could have opened up the second-year pro’s offensive potential.

But in practice? In practice, it was Quez Watkins, not Reagor, who led the team in slot snaps at 571, which was 336 more than his total on the outside.

Considering Nick Sirianni never really took a page out of the Kliff Kingsbury playback to trot out four or even five wide receivers, the decision to migrate Watkins into the slot more and more often wasn’t a matter of rotational luck and was instead more a concerted effort to get his fastest receiver involved on vertical passing concepts deployed closer to the offensive line and on screen concepts, which seldom produced big results but was a fixture of the offense for weeks. While the results weren’t always pretty, and Watkins finished out the season with a yards per game average of only 38.1, when Jalen Hurts connected on a big one, like his 91-yard catch in Week 2 that went down as the longest reception of the entire 2021 NFL season, it seriously changed the tenor of a game.

That is how Watkins should be used moving forward; as a field stretcher who forces opposing teams to cover the entire field and keep a safety deep just in case there’s a coverage lapse upfront.

While seldom deployed out of the slot, that’s the element DeSean Jackson brought to the offense during his initial run with the Eagles and was a big reason why opposing teams weren’t able to stack the box on LeSean McCoy and Donovan McNabb/Michael Vick. Torrey Smith filled the same role for the Eagles in 2017 – again, as an outside guy – and played a bigger role in the offense’s identity than his status as the team’s fourth offensive option would suggest.

Give Watkins and DeVonta Smith for that matter a third receiver who can average 100 catches per season, be that a top-tier free agent like Allen Robinson, a trade target like Calvin Ridley, a draft target like USC’s Drake London, or even a mid-tier guy like Sammy Watkins, and the rest of the Eagles’ receiver could excel as better fits in more defined roles.

Unless Watkins – Quez, not Sammy – takes a massive step forward from Year 2 to 3, it’s probably a good idea to get the team a premier second option to make the lives of everyone else a good bit easier, especially since the Eagles are likely looking to take a step forward on the path back to contention as well.

There’s no doubt about it; Quez Watkins deserves a ton of credit for his efforts in 2021. He took a step forward as a wide receiver, took on a far scaled up role from the season prior, and gave the Philadelphia Eagles hope that they do, in fact, have more than one legit wide receiver under contract moving forward. But to truly max out the offense’s potential, give Jalen Hurts a fair evaluation, and take some pressure off of DeVonta Smith, Howie Roseman needs to add another legit wide receiver and allow Smith to thrive as a WR3.