Watkins a Bird Without a Nest

Danny Watkins returned to Philadelphia this week for the first time since the heady weekend he was drafted in the first round by the Eagles. He knew the NFL lockout meant he couldn't enter the NovaCare complex, where he was feted just three weeks ago, but Watkins, a guard from Baylor, wanted to meet some players and find a place to live for whenever his Eagles career actually begins.

One problem with that, though.

"It's kinda tough. You can't really do anything; you're kind of sittin' on your hands," Watkins said today after a session at the Power Train gym in Cherry Hill, under the auspices of Todd Herremans.

"I went house hunting yesterday, and the golden question is, 'when you moving in?' I'm like, 'Well, I dunno.' So I'm going to hang out here a bit, keep working out with the guys, probably go back to Texas, kind of start packing, work out, get ready to go, but that's going to be about all I can do," Watkins said.

Watkins is planning on summer school at Baylor to finish up his degree in general studies, even though his career plan after football is to return to firefighting in West Kelowna, B.C.

"One day, my kid's gonna ask me if school's important, and i'm gonna say, 'Well, yeah, of course.' I don't want him to say, 'Well, you never graduated.' I want to be able to hang something on the wall and explain to him how it's important."

Look for more on Watkins in Friday's Daily News.

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While Danny Watkins, Todd Herremans, Trevor Laws, Jamar Chaney and Eldra Buckley were working out at Power Train today, quarterback Michael Vick apparently gathered some receivers at a South Jersey field, as Vick had said he would do. Reporters were not invited, despite stamping our feet and holding our breath.