Adrian Fedkiw
Every season is the year that Zach Ertz is supposed to break out, but he hasn’t yet.
Every offseason he has lofty expectations because of how he ends the season. He’s Mr. December. He averages 61.6 yards per game, with seven of his 13 career touchdowns coming in the month — he had two Sunday, but it was technically January. His second best month is September, where he puts up 40.3 yards per contest with one career score.
RELATED: Zach Ertz Shows How to Not Protect Carson Wentz
This brings us to his final four games of the 2016 campaign where he caught 31 passes for 364 yards, including a 13-reception, 139-yard performance against the Dallas Cowboys in the Philadelphia Eagles’ 27-13 win on Sunday afternoon.
Zach Ertz had 13 receptions for 139 yards and 2 TDs. Finished with 31 catches for 364 yards over his last 4 games. pic.twitter.com/YVWxHBeNZw
— The Bitter Birds (@AdrianFedkiw) January 1, 2017
Granted, the Eagles have been out of postseason contention for a couple weeks now and the production is coming during “meaningless” action. Nonetheless, he still finished the season strong, but the question now is, can he finally put up these lofty numbers during the first four games?
It does seem like Carson Wentz and Ertz have built a nice rapport together. Wentz commented on it after Sunday’s game.
“He is a heck of a player. He creates mismatches all over the field. So it’s just been one of those things, when things break down or when I know I need somebody, Ertz has been that guy. He’s has been that guy that steps up for us. So it’s been really good working with him. Along the same lines, I’m looking forward to continuing that relationship and building that chemistry down the road.”
I can’t wait to see it build either.
In Ertz’s defense, he’s never had stability at the quarterback position. During his four-year tenure with the Eagles, he’s caught passes from Michael Vick, Nick Foles, Mark Sanchez, Matt Barkley, Sam Bradford and now Wentz. Ertz talked about that:
“I’ve had five quarterbacks in four years. It’s hard obviously to build that trust. And that chemistry consistently with a quarterback if they’re constantly getting shipped out of here. But when Carson was drafted it made us so excited for us position players because we knew we were finally going to have the opportunity to build that chemistry with one quarterback for a long time. So I think guys were really excited about it. These last couple of weeks we’ve really improved between Carson and myself, so we’re really excited about the future. These last two weeks have been huge, building that momentum into next year.”
Wentz is going to be here for a while, Ertz has no more excuses. OK, I’m definitely falling into that trap again, Ertz is obviously going to break out in 2017!