Why Zach Ertz Could Be One of the NFL's Biggest Breakout Stars in 2015
Philadelphia Eagles tight end Zach Ertz has heard this before. He's heard about being a breakout candidate, and he's heard about how he can go about making that sudden leap a reality early in his career.
"Last year there was so much hype about 'Oh, Zach Ertz is going to have a breakout season,'" he told Jeff McLane of the Philadelphia Inquirer. "This year there are no predictions. There are no statements."
A breakout season can be loosely defined. It would seem that when Ertz's receiving yards jumped in 2014 from 469 yards to 702, he busted through an arbitrary and imagined barrier.
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But he posted those numbers despite being on the field for only 50.3 percent of the Eagles' offensive snaps, per Pro Football Focus. Was Ertz's breakout really a breakout then with all the potential production he left on the sideline?
He watched so much because head coach Chip Kelly considered fellow tight end Brent Celek to be a more effective blocker. Kelly's fast-paced offense doesn't often offer many convenient chances for substitutions, which meant that if Ertz wasn't part of the early-down personnel, he kept waiting for his turn.
Let's reach a compromise then, which will double as my 2015 Ertz prediction: He'll have a post-breakout, um, breakout.
It'll be a sort of double breakout, with offseason moves resulting in an increased role to match the 24-year-old's immense talent and good ol' practice-field sweat improving the weakness that limited Ertz's playing time during his second season.
The first step and latter part of that equation is under Ertz's control. He needs more opportunities, and to get them, he has to be considered less of a liability as a blocker. At the very least, he can't be as much of a downgrade when slotted in over Celek.
He may never match Celek's presence as a blocker, because as Kelly gushed in 2014, via the Inquirer's Zach Berman, the veteran has carved a niche for himself in that role:
Ertz doesn't have to pass or even match Celek in that capacity, however. He likely just needs to be adequate, because then his superior skill as a pass-catcher will make it more difficult to justify yanking him off the field.
How does one go about becoming decent as a blocker? Well, enlisting the services of an offensive line coach who once oversaw the development of Anthony Munoz and Bruce Matthews at USC helps.
Ertz has worked with Hudson Houck this offseason, the legendary offensive line coach who spent 29 years in the NFL following his time at USC.
Houck is primarily known at the professional level for his time guiding the powerful Dallas Cowboys offensive line grunts who gifted running back Emmitt Smith with plenty of glowing daylight. He had two stints in Dallas, the longest of which was a nine-season stretch that included two of the Cowboys' three Super Bowl wins during the '90s.
Ertz was well aware of his weakness when he contacted Houck.
"The blocking side comes first for me," he told PhillyVoice's Matt Mullin. "That's what I focused on all offseason. I think that's what I've made the most improvement on as well."
Houck agrees, and he said the focus during his time with Ertz has been on establishing power through his pad level and using the strength of his hips and legs.
Ertz's inexperience has been his main hurdle, which is typically the case with immensely talented pass-catching tight ends who aren't put in a position to block much either in the NFL or previously during their college careers.
"A lot of times guys like him have never experienced in-line blocking where you have to put your face in there a little bit to block somebody," Houck said to Bleacher Report during a phone conversation. "He's certainly improved in all the drills we went through."
When asked if he would now trust Ertz with a key blocking assignment, Houck gave quite the compliment through a player comparison from his time with the Cowboys.
"He's very similar to Jay Novacek," he said.
"He's built like Jay, and he's a hard worker like Jay. But he's probably stronger than Jay. We asked Jay to do a lot of [in-line blocking]. What we asked him to do would not generally be a one-on-one block, where you would, say, reach-block a linebacker who's 260 pounds. But in the offense that we had, with Jay we asked him to do a lot of down-blocking where we gave him angles to get on a defender and then sustain the block from there with athletic ability."
"Blocking somebody isn't all about power. It's also about your athletic ability and being able to sustain the block, keep your balance, use your feet and have overall foot quickness, which Zach has. So I would trust him."
Ertz's strides forward have also been noticed by a rather important set of eyes on the Eagles sideline.
"I think he's working extremely hard in the offseason at continuing to get better," Kelly said during the NFL meetings, via McLane. "I still think there's a big jump that can occur with him from Year 2 to Year 3."
Those are encouraging words from the man who in part controls exactly how far Ertz leaps in his third year. If Kelly believes now, then he'll keep believing when it matters and favor Celek less often in early-down situations.
Keeping Ertz off the field is hard even now, purely because of his offensive talent. You experience an eye-widening reflex while observing how much Ertz produced in 2014 with little playing time compared to his position peers.
Consider the mileage he compiled on balls traveling 20-plus yards through the air. Those receptions are otherwise known as the sort of deep, secondary-stretching throws that create a bruising mismatch when they're landing in the hands of a 6'5" tight end who weighs 250 pounds.
Ertz caught seven such receptions in 2014, finishing second at his position despite watching nearly half of the Eagles' offensive snaps. That translated to 173 receiving yards on 20-plus-yard catches, a total behind only three other tight ends.
| Coby Fleener | 68.6 | 9 | 291 |
| Delanie Walker | 83.0 | 4 | 183 |
| Jared Cook | 68.1 | 5 | 183 |
| Zach Ertz | 50.3 | 7 | 173 |
| Antonio Gates | 72.3 | 6 | 161 |
Ertz trailed St. Louis Rams tight end Jared Cook by just 10 yards, even with a snap count that was 17.8 percentage points lower.
His short time in the NFL so far has been defined by premier production and maximizing inconsistent opportunities.
You're probably pretty good when your name is in any sentence that also includes the Patriots' Rob Gronkowski, the Seahawks' Jimmy Graham, the Chargers' Antonio Gates and the Cowboys' Jason Witten. As McLane also noted, those four are the only active tight ends who posted more receiving yards over their first two seasons than Ertz's 1,171.
He's reached that plateau through more than speed and size, which become useless tools as a tight end if there's always a thick layer of butter splashed on your hands. That's not a problem for Ertz.
| Jermaine Gresham | 78 | 1.59 |
| Antonio Gates | 98 | 2.82 |
| Jason Witten | 87 | 3.03 |
| Brent Celek | 47 | 3.03 |
| Charles Clay | 81 | 3.33 |
| Zach Ertz | 86 | 3.33 |
Celek is among that group, too, on far fewer targets. Ertz is more versatile, which should allow him to quickly ascend into the pass-catching void left by the departure of wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, who moved on to the Kansas City Chiefs as a free agent.
Maclin finished 2014 with 1,318 receiving yards, shattering his previous career single-season high of 964 yards in 2010. He was on the other end for 28.7 percent of the Eagles' regular-season passing yards, which leaves a black hole to be filled.
Wide receivers Jordan Matthews and first-round pick Nelson Agholor will do their part, but they don't have Ertz's size and speed combination to separate physically while also creating missed tackles after the catch. We saw Ertz's entire toolbox during a Week 16 loss to the Washington Redskins in 2014, when he caught 15 passes, a single-game Eagles record and the third most by any NFL tight end since 1960.
Ertz showcased his steady hands with a leaping 16-yard reception in the fourth quarter.
Earlier during the second quarter, Ertz showed why he's becoming valuable to Kelly. A tight end who's really a large-bodied wide receiver in form and function can be used throughout the formation. We see that with Ertz, who was in the slot for 47.4 percent of his snaps in 2014, per PFF.
This time on 2nd-and-4, he started split out wide and motioned to the right slot, behind Celek. Ertz then ran a curl route to the first-down marker, squaring up his ample body to give quarterback Mark Sanchez a wide target.
That was the routine part of the play. The rest may still look ordinary, but quick, reactionary movement to pick up extra yards is often what separates top-tier tight ends from the replacement-level plodders below them.
Ertz cradled the ball, knowing that Redskins cornerback Bashaud Breeland was bearing down on him and less than a yard away.
Then he spun and accelerated, leaving Breeland to catch only his heel.
Ertz does the small things, and he does them well. His quick movement leads to both nuanced athleticism, which allows him to tack more yards onto a catch made in traffic, and the more glaringly obvious superhuman type of athleticism.
A fine example of the latter came back in Week 2 against the Indianapolis Colts. Ertz lined up in the slot again, and this time he was targeted 14 yards downfield up the middle by then-quarterback Nick Foles. The throw was high to clear a linebacker short in coverage, which meant Ertz had to elevate, meet the ball at its highest point, adjust mid-leap and then hold on after contact.
Ertz checked all those boxes, and when he came back to earth, he had a 21-yard reception that set up a touchdown.
He finished with three 20-plus-yard catches against the Colts in one of the two games when he was on the field for at least 75 percent of the Eagles' offensive snaps. Which brings us back to where we began: his opportunities and why they should increase.
Ertz has proven himself statistically over two seasons, even with limited snaps. You can also press pause anywhere on his tape to see a strong, sure-handed and athletically gifted tight end. Will his blocking still hold him back from reaching the 75-snap plateau each week?
That's potentially the only hurdle keeping Ertz from a true breakout.
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