TERRELL WATSON was about 3 years old, he said, when his parents told him the truth: They were actually his grandparents. His mother, their then-15-year-old estranged daughter, had left him on their front porch in a basket, with some clothes, a few weeks after he was born.
His two younger siblings also were grandchildren of Billy and Janice Watson, of Oxnard, Calif.
That wasn't the hardest thing about Watson's childhood, though. Watson - a running back signed last week to the Eagles' practice squad who seems likely to join the roster for this week's season finale against Dallas - struggled mightily with a learning disability and a speech impediment.