PHILADELPHIA − There is no one way to replace a tight end like Dallas Goedert.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni made that clear Wednesday by saying, “to me, (Goedert’s) having a top 3, top 5, top 2, whatever you want (to call it), top 1 tight end year. That stinks for us as a team, stinks for Dallas.
“So how do we replace him? You can’t, right?”
Then he went on to say that it will have to be a committee approach, beginning this Sunday when the Eagles face the Indianapolis Colts.
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But there is a player on the roster, who’s not a tight end, who very well could be the head of that committee. That is wide receiver Quez Watkins.
Goedert was placed on injured reserve Wednesday with a shoulder injury, meaning he has to miss at least four games. The earliest Goedert can return is Dec. 18 against the Chicago Bears.
It’s not like Watkins is unknown to the Eagles or the NFL. He just hasn’t had many chances this season. But this is what Sirianni said about Watkins last January, when Watkins had 43 catches for 647 yards: “He can be one of the best No. 2 (wide receivers) that I’ve been around in the NFL.”
Watkins’ totals last season aren’t far off from Goedert’s 2021 production of 56 catches for 830 yards.
That would seem more likely than relying on the Eagles’ other three tight ends − Jack Stoll, Grant Calcaterra and Tyree Jackson, who was just activated off the physically unable to perform list. The three have a combined 12 catches for 133 yards in their NFL careers.
Watkins, of course, didn’t become the Eagles’ No. 2 wide receiver this season because the Eagles traded for A.J. Brown last spring to go along with DeVonta Smith and Goedert.
The three have received the vast majority of the targets from quarterback Jalen Hurts. Smith has 46 receptions for 481 yards this season, Brown has 44 for 725, and Goedert has 43 for 544.
Then comes Watkins, with 12 catches for 193 receiving yards.
So it’s easy to see the Eagles going more with three wide receiver sets, perhaps with Stoll (4 catches, 49 yards this season) as the lone tight end serving more as a blocker. Or perhaps Calcaterra as the lone tight end (1 catch, 40 yards).
“Obviously, my role has been more to block, as everyone sees,” Stoll said. “I think as we get moving forward here, if that opens up some opportunities, I’m going to make the most of whatever the coaches ask me to do. If not, I’ll still make the most of what I’m asked to do.”
It just so happened that Watkins had his best game of the season, with 4 catches for 80 yards, in the Eagles’ 32-21 loss to the Washington Commanders on Monday night.
Watkins got more chances because Brown said he tweaked his ankle early in the game. Brown played most of the game, but he clearly wasn’t the same, with just 1 catch for 7 yards. Then Goedert hurt his shoulder early in the fourth quarter, when he got pulled down by the face mask on a play in which he fumbled the ball away.
The referees didn’t call the infraction.
Goedert still played every snap on offense, but he wasn’t targeted after that.
The last impression Eagles fans have of Watkins is his fumble later in the quarter that squelched the Eagles’ best chance to overcome a 5-point deficit. Watkins dove to catch a 50-yard pass from Hurts at Washington’s 23-yard line. Watkins, who was untouched, then got up and started running. That’s when Commanders cornerback Benjamin St-Juste reached in from behind and stripped the ball away.
“Honestly, I was just trying to make a play,” Watkins said after the game. “I know I didn’t get touched and I knew I had left him behind, so I just wanted to get up and get some extra yards.”
But it was Watkins’ speed to get behind defenders that the Eagles have found so attractive when they made him their sixth-round draft pick in 2020 out of Southern Mississippi.
That was the case even last season when Watkins had by far his best season in the NFL, even though Sirianni said last January that Watkins deserved more chances.
He’s gotten even fewer chances this season, but that will likely change.
“When he’s been called upon, he’s made plays,” Sirianni said. “He’s pretty efficient when the ball comes to him. He obviously had a big fumble this week in this game, and he knows that. We’ll work to fix that, and he’ll work to fix that, but we have a lot of confidence in him.
“That’s what we say with the roles … (they) can change as the year goes on. And you have to be ready to excel in the role you’re called upon.”
It sure looks like Watkins will get called upon.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.
