The Biggest Obstacle Zach Ertz Faces As He's Set To Make Eagles Return This Week

PHILADELPHIA — Even at 35, Zach Ertz still looks likely to be an immediate contributor for an Eagles offense missing Dallas Goedert on Monday night in Chicago.

The 14-year veteran, who spent his first eight-plus seasons with the Eagles, rejoined the organization earlier this week on the practice squad after Goedert was ruled out for multiple weeks with a sprained MCL suffered in Week 2 against Tennessee.

Not Enough

Without their TE1, Ryan Mahaffey's tight end room thinned to veteran blocker Johnny Mundt and E.J. Jenkins on the 53.

That shortage has already shown up in personnel. Through two weeks the Eagles have been one of the heaviest 11-personnel teams in the league, lining up with three receivers 78.3 percent of the time, according to Sumer Sports — second-most in the NFL.

The point of Sean Mannion’s Shanahan/McVay-style attack is to call the same concepts from different groupings. That plan is harder without Goedert, and with Grant Calcaterra and rookie Eli Stowers on injured reserve. Multiple-tight-end sets have been limited because the backups aren’t ready to carry that load.

Ertz should help, depending on how his knee holds up. He tore his ACL and LCL on Dec. 7 last season. The usual rehab marker for that injury is nine months, a threshold he crossed earlier this month.

The next hurdle is the playbook. The last time Ertz was in Philadelphia was Nick Sirianni’s first season as head coach in 2021. He said only two or three plays from that year still exist.

The plays aren’t the problem, however. The language is.

“I mean, the routes are the same,” Ertz said when asked what the more difficult part of the learning curve was by Eagles On SI. “I can run a deep cross. I can run a corner route. That’s universal. The routes are the same, but the terminology is different. So it’s really memorizing.

"You start with the formation, you start with the motions, then you go to the individual plays, the run game. So it’s really just trying to memorize a thousand different concepts or whatever the number, a hundred different concepts in a week.”

Zach Ertz alert. #Eagles pic.twitter.com/2o0wbNulnh
— John McMullen (@JFMcMullen) September 25, 2026

Known as a high-IQ, savvy veteran, Ertz is expected to cram for the final exam and clear that hurdle to take meaningful snaps in Chicago — and likely get more targets against the Bears than anyone else at the position.

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