Zach Ertz to join NFC East team on one-year deal

Zach Ertz will join his third team since November. After landing with the Lions late last season, the veteran tight end came up earlier on Wednesday as a Commanders target. The NFC East team will follow through on a deal.

Washington has an agreement with Ertz, according to NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero, who adds that the one-year contract is worth up to $5M. This move will reunite Ertz with former Cardinals HC Kliff Kingsbury, who will debut as the Commanders’ play-caller.

Ertz finishing last season on the Lions’ practice squad allowed him to sign before the market opens next week. This will position the longtime Eagles pass catcher to be a potential starter again. The Commanders released Logan Thomas late last week. 

Several teams — the Eagles, Chiefs, Bills and Ravens — were interested in Ertz following his in-season Cardinals exit. Ertz and the Cards reached a financial compromise following the trade deadline, and the team removed Ertz from its IR list. No one claimed Erts, and he did not play in a game for another team following that transaction. The Lions did not activate him ahead of the NFC championship game.

Two tight ends are now off the board ahead of free agency, with this Ertz deal coming a day after the Texans re-signed Dalton Schultz. Teams will still have options like Hunter Henry and Noah Fant, but the market is thinner after these two agreements. Ertz will be looking to bounce back after a down season on a rebuilding team. The Stanford alum caught just 27 passes for 187 yards and a touchdown in seven Arizona games last season. A quad injury led Ertz to IR, which ended up wrapping his Cardinals tenure. He requested to be cut soon after, and the Cardinals then turned second-year TE Trey McBride loose.

Ertz, 33, spent around a year as a healthy option in Kingsbury’s offense. The Cardinals acquired him via trade from the Eagles during the 2021 season, as the Eagles opted to pay Dallas Goedert over a second Ertz extension, and the NFC West team received promising returns. Ertz totaled 56 catches for 574 yards and three touchdowns in 11 Cardinals games that year. At the time, that doubled as the single-season TE yardage record during the Cards’ Arizona years; McBride has since surpassed it. The showing led the Cardinals to re-sign Ertz on a three-year, $31.65M deal in 2022. That preceded a season-ending knee injury midway through Kingsbury’s woeful Arizona finale.

Ertz’s best years are probably behind him, and it will be interesting to see if the Commanders make a bigger TE splash this offseason. But the former Eagles third-rounder has six seasons with at least 750 receiving yards. Ertz ranks second in Eagles history with 709 receptions. Post-Thomas, Washington rosters John Bates, Armani Rogers and 2022 fifth-rounder Cole Turner. Thomas’ 496 receiving yards led Commanders tight ends by more than 300 last season.