Faust
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Ertz gaining traction in Eagles' offense
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
OON, VERY, very soon, Zach Ertz is going to become a major player in Chip Kelly's offense.
Ertz has played only 114 offensive snaps in the Eagles' first five games and has only seven receptions. But the star potential of the 6-5, 250-pound rookie tight end jumps off the film at you every time you watch him.
He has made the most of those seven catches, converting every one of them into first downs. Only DeSean Jackson (24) and Jason Avant (nine) have more receiving first downs, and they've played considerably more snaps than Ertz. He is averaging an impressive 21.4 yards per catch, with four catches of 24 yards or more.
"I'm getting more and more comfortable every week," Ertz said. "Getting a grasp for how this league is played. The first couple of games were hard. I had a shoulder injury at the beginning of [training] camp. Ever since then, each week, I've progressed, which was kind of my goal."
A lot of people have wondered why Ertz, whom the Eagles selected with the 35th overall pick in the April draft, hasn't been out on the field more in the first five games.
With Jeremy Maclin out for the season with a torn ACL, the Eagles don't really have a second reliable receiving option to DeSean Jackson. As we saw in the Eagles' losses to Kansas City and Denver, when a defense is able to take Jackson out of the game, there isn't a real good Plan B, aside from handing the ball off more to LeSean McCoy.
Riley Cooper has been on the field for 92.7 percent of the Eagles' offensive plays, but has been targeted only 19 times and has only eight catches and four first downs, though he does have one of the team's three touchdown catches in the red zone.
Avant has had three straight 50-catch seasons. But defensive coordinators don't lie awake at night worrying how they're going to stop him. Same with the Eagles' starting tight end, Brent Celek.
But Ertz is different, which is why he was drafted so high. His unique combination of size, speed and route-running ability will give defenses Jimmy Graham-like matchup fits.
"I think Zach has continued to develop a little bit," Kelly said. "We've seen more and more from him on a weekly basis here as he starts to continue to grasp what we are doing here."
Despite keeping four tight ends on his roster, despite signing free agent James Casey and drafting Ertz, Kelly so far has used very few multiple-tight-end personnel groupings.
Eighty-two percent of their offensive plays have been run with "11" personnel (1 back, 1 tight end, 3 wide receivers). They've used 12 personnel (2 tight ends) only 59 times in the first five games. When they've gone with two tight ends, Ertz has teamed with Celek. The last couple of games, he also has been rotating with Celek in 11 personnel sets.
"I thought in the beginning that there was going to be a lot of 12 and 13 [3 tight ends] personnel," Ertz said. "But right now, it's been mostly 11 personnel."
Kelly is slowly but surely expanding Ertz' role. He played a season-high 33 snaps last week against the Giants. Probably will play more Sunday with the Bucs' All-Pro cornerback, Darrelle Revis, expected to shadow Jackson all over the field.
"I expect him to grow. But he's just [five games] into his professional football career," Kelly said.
"To expect him to run around and line up all over the place like Jimmy Graham, I don't think anybody envisioned that as we put together an offense and start to figure out what he's good at, what he's not good at.
"To say, 'Hey, you've gotten a few snaps at tight end, now let's put you out at split end and now let's take you and put you in the slot,' that's a lot easier said than done. To get all the little nuances of how to do the little things when you're running a shallow crossing route, if all of a sudden the front-side linebacker drops you, but the backside linebacker picks you up man-to-man, how you can stick and avoid and get across the field [takes time].
"There's a lot of details in doing it. It's not as easy as saying, 'Hey, we drafted this guy and he's got the ability.' Yeah, he does. But I also think we have to get him settled. We have to make sure that we all as a group understand that everybody here, you have to walk before you can run.
"There's a lot of big plans that you can do with Zach and that we can do with this entire offense. But it's going to come in a process. It's not going to come with all of a sudden tomorrow we are going to come up with 17 different ways where we can deploy Zach and put him in different situations, because it's not fair to him."
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