With tight ends hurt and blockers struggling, the Eagles need Zach Ertz to be more than a good story
Forget the sentiments behind Ertz's return. The Eagles need production from one of their franchise all-timers.
It’s simultaneously hard to believe that Zach Ertz has been gone for five years and easy to forget that his Eagles tenure overlapped with Jalen Hurts’. Time is funny like that, I guess. The question is whether Ertz can still play football. It’s a crucial one for the Eagles.
It’s a decent bet that Ertz can still run and catch. He sure he could before he tore his ACL last December. Even at 35 years old, in a subpar Commanders offense, Ertz was on pace for 70 catches and 700 yards before injuring his knee against the Vikings in Week 14. In his year-plus with the Commanders, he was averaging nearly four catches and 40 yards per game. Travis Kelce and Tony Gonzalez are the only tight ends in NFL history to average those numbers at age 36+. But, then, Ertz was one of only six to do it at age 35+.
David Murphy alerts
The bigger unknown is whether Ertz can help replace all of the other things that Dallas Goedert did prior to spraining his MCL in the Eagles’ 24-20 win over the Titans on Sunday. Goedert has played a central role in offensive coordinator Sean Mannion’s scheme through three weeks, with Mannion moving his 31-year-old tight end all over the field to take advantage of his abilities as both a receiver and as a blocker in the run and short-passing game.
Goedert’s absence is a particular concern given the blocking struggles that have plagued them as a team. The Eagles rank among the NFL leaders in zero and negative yardage plays. Through two weeks, they’ve seen 18 runs and passes go for zero or negative yards. That’s 14.6% of their touches from scrimmage, more than all but three teams (Raiders, Patriots, Colts).
Ertz was never regarded as a great blocker, even in his prime. The Eagles don’t need him to be great. But it would sure help if Ertz was good enough to expand Mannion’s options for replacing Goedert while also fixing the overall run/short-passing game. It’d also be a great story.
When the Eagles traded Ertz in 2021, midway through Hurts’ first full season as a starter, he was 11 catches shy of becoming the franchise’s all-time leader in receptions. His 579 catches are 10 behind Hall of Fame receiver Harold Carmichael and 127 more than Hall of Fame tight end Pete Retzlaff. Ertz might only keep the record for a year, given DeVonta Smith’s rapidly rising career total (398 at the moment). Sill, it would tie a nice bow on a career that began in Chip Kelly’s first season as coach.
Most of the heavy lifting will need to be done by Mannion and general manager Howie Roseman. The Eagles have leaned heavily on veteran blocking tight end Johnny Mundt through two games. His current 52.7% snap share is dramatically higher than the rate he logged in any of his first nine NFL seasons. One option for Mundt is to make heavier use of Mundt in “11″ personnel paired with Darius Cooper, the Eagles’ best blocker at wide receiver. But, again, Mundt has never been a full-time player. His career-high single-season receiving totals are 19 catches and 172 yards.
However Mannion decides to handle his personnel groupings, there will be tradeoffs. There is a reason why a legitimate two-way tight end has become one of the NFL’s more valuable commodities. There might not be another position in sports where the paradigm has shifted as dramatically as it has since Ertz entered the league. When the Eagles selected him at No. 35 overall in 2013, the previous four drafts had seen just seven tight ends go in the first or second rounds. That’s less than half of the number of tight ends that went in the first and second rounds in the most recent four-year window (18, including Eagles rookie Eli Stowers).
The renewed emphasis on the position has been evident through the first two weeks of the NFL season. Of the 14 players with 12+ receptions, five are tight ends. Buffalo’s Dalton Kincaid, Houston’s Dalton Schultz and Kelce all rank among the top 12 in receiving yards. Last season, the Rams had four tight ends rank among their top seven target-earners for a team that led the league in scoring.
With teams increasingly relying on nickel and and three-safety defensive packages, and with defensive coordinators prioritizing versatility, tight end is a position that can decide which team has the matchup advantage on any given play. The question isn’t how close Ertz is to the player he was. It’s how close can he be to the players the Eagles suddenly need.
Landon Dickerson has made a career of fighting through injuries and pain, last season being the latest instance. But after the left guard looked like a shell of himself Week 1 vs. Washington, the Eagles decided to shut him down — at least for now. With Dickerson landing on injured reserve, The Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeff McLane explains why, this time around, he and the Eagles are taking the cautious route. Jeff also shares what he's heard about how the Eagles might fill Dickerson's void on the offensive line, and takes listener questions in this week's mailbag segment. Listen here.
Listen to all episodes here or wherever you get your podcasts.
