I think he’s taking pride in getting better in the run game. We go against guys - Steven Means is a beast out there and every day in practice he brings it. “I’ve seen him really evolve in practice," right tackle Lane Johnson said. The more you can do, the more you're going to play.
In his five NFL seasons, Ertz's snaps have increased from 41 percent as a rookie in 2013 to 50 percent in 2014, then 68 and 75 percent the last two years and 86 percent this year. He's going to continue to get better and better as time goes on."Īs recently as two years ago, Celek was still the full-time starter and Ertz played mainly in passing situations. "Since Day 1 when he got here, he's worked on becoming a better blocker. And then coming to the NFL, when you haven't done it in college a lot, it's a tough transition. "I don't think he had to do it in college. "He's just worked really hard at it," Celek said. I take a lot of pride in being a complete tight end."Įrtz couldn't have a better teammate to learn from than Celek, who has been one of the NFL's top blocking tight ends for 11 years now - and was once a pretty darn good receiving tight end as well. "You hear certain things, 'We've got to take him out,' on certain plays early in my career and it's just something I’ve taken to heart, working extremely hard at. So it’s a little bit of pride kind of thing. "I don’t want to be viewed as a weakness in the pass game, and I definitely don’t want to be viewed as a weakness in the run game.
"I don’t want to be viewed as a weakness in any area," Ertz said. But Ertz, who was rarely asked to block at Stanford and early on here, has made remarkable progress on the line of scrimmage. It's much harder to gauge his progress as a blocker. He's gone from a guy who backed up Brent Celek his first couple years in the league to a guy who's putting up some historic numbers as a pass-catching tight end. It's easy to measure the improvements Ertz has made as a receiver. That's one part of his game he’s known he’s had to work on, and he’s attacked it, and I give him a lot of credit for that." He wants to be the best, that’s his drive and it’s genuine. He studies it, watches film, understands, 'What do we do here? How should we attack it? What's my assignment here?' He’s really worked at it. "It’s a credit to him because he’s worked so hard on it. “He’s grown a lot in that aspect of his game since he came to us five years ago," said tight ends coach Justin Peelle, who Chip Kelly brought in back in 2013, the same year the Eagles drafted Ertz. Eagles' top draft pick takes high spot on most important list
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