How the Commanders helped former Eagles tight end Zach Ertz ‘fall back in love with the game again’

ASHBURN, Va. — Winning is new around here. Two weeks ago, the Washington Commanders won their first playoff game in 19 years. Sunday’s NFC championship game will be just the 11th playoff game since the turn of the century for the organization and its first conference championship game since Joe Gibbs — the coach for whom they named a street at the practice facility just north of Dulles airport — led the team to a Super Bowl win to end the 1991 season.

It may be an abnormal place for a veteran like Zach Ertz to revive his playing career. Or maybe the perfect spot.

The former Eagles tight end, who played eight-plus seasons in Philadelphia and was a big reason there was a Super Bowl parade on Broad Street seven years ago, thought the end was nearing just over a year ago. His post-Eagles career had been a bit bumpy. Injuries ended his 2022 and 2023 seasons early, and he was 33 when the Arizona Cardinals released him last November. There weren’t thoughts of retirement, but there was uncertainty over what the future held.

“I just wanted an opportunity to come out here and prove that I am still the same guy,” Ertz said Wednesday after practice.

The road to Washington started last fall. Ertz reconnected with his former trainer at Stanford, Shannon Turley, as he worked his way back to full strength. While there were a few opportunities to join other rosters after his release from Arizona, Ertz said, they weren’t right. So he trained constantly for months. There were creeping thoughts about whether he could be the same player again, but Turley helped him “get explosive again” and “feel fast,” Ertz said.

The free-agency period rolled around, and Ertz’s former coach in Arizona, Kliff Kingsbury, was the new offensive coordinator in Washington under a respected culture guy in head coach Dan Quinn. The Commanders had the second pick in the draft, one they eventually used on Jayden Daniels, who is the shoo-in for offensive rookie of the year. In a way, it was an ideal landing place for Ertz, who signed a one-year deal. The Commanders needed him, and he needed them.

“It was really an opportunity for me to just fall back in love with the game again,” Ertz said, “and really just enjoy the process again and just be around people that know how to use me and allow me to be at my best. It’s just been so much fun. It’s exceeded all my expectations. Obviously playing with a quarterback like Jayden has helped a ton and just his humility and eagerness to grow.”

It’s a weird game sometimes.

“You don’t know where football is going,” Quinn said. “There’s injuries. There’s all sorts of stuff. … To see him come out the other side and be able to share the knowledge and find, not just the joy of playing, but playing well. I had known red zone and third downs and two-minute would be a factor, and he surpassed those and kept going.”

» READ MORE: Dan Quinn helped him chase his NFL dream. This diehard Eagles fan can’t lose on Sunday.

Ertz was in Philadelphia when Carson Wentz and Jalen Hurts were rookies and has been around other young quarterbacks, Nick Foles included. Normally, Ertz said, young quarterbacks tend to be reactionary. They hit a speed bump and learn from it. But Ertz noticed right away that Daniels was “proactive.” He was in the building early and wanted to learn.

“The physical tools stood out, obviously, but his approach has set him apart,” Ertz said.

All Daniels has done is throw for 3,568 yards with 25 touchdowns against nine interceptions while leading the team in rushing with 891 yards and another six scores during the regular season. He has risen to the occasion in Washington’s two playoff wins. Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said Tuesday that Daniels is “probably” the best rookie quarterback he’s even seen.

The Commanders have an All-Pro wide receiver in Terry McLaurin, but Ertz has been a big deal for Washington.

He racked up 66 catches for 654 yards and seven touchdowns, his most TDs since 2018, the last time he played a full season before this one. During Saturday’s win in Detroit, Ertz caught all five of his targets for 28 yards, including a touchdown before halftime that extended the Commanders’ lead to 10 points before the break.

“It’s not the volume for me anymore,” Ertz said. “I’ve had all the stats that I need to have. It’s just about making an impact however I can.”

Daniels pointed to Ertz as one of the people who has helped him navigate all that comes with being a rookie quarterback in the NFL. There’s a 10-year age difference between the two.

“Everybody is kind of like a big kid in a way,” Daniels said. “You just got to be comfortable to bring that side out. I think I do a good enough job of joking around with the older guys.”

Plus, Daniels needs the relationship with Ertz a lot more than some others.

“Tight end can be a quarterback’s best friend,” he said “He’s seen a lot of football in this league, so just being able to lean on him in certain situations and kind of pick his brain early on, as we built the relationship, having those types of conversations, ‘This is how I want you to run this route vs. this coverage,’ and stuff like that.”

It’s working, especially as the pressure dialed up. Six of Ertz’s seven regular-season scores came in Week 11 or later, a stretch that started with Washington’s 26-18 loss in Philadelphia, where Ertz’s last-minute touchdown applied a little bit of pressure at the end. Ertz caught two touchdown passes in Washington’s Week 17 win vs. Atlanta, including the playoff-clinching overtime winner.

“I still feel like we’re just scratching the surface together as a quarterback-tight end relationship, even though it’s the NFC championship,” Ertz said. “I still feel like there’s so much room to grow.”

» READ MORE: Eagles-Commanders matchups: Two Eagles game-changers have an edge. Will they be the difference?

On a team with so little playoff experience, Ertz’s words sometimes can be gospel. This week it’s about staying the course.

“You can’t make it bigger than what it really is,” Ertz said. “The things that win you games in the regular season are the same things that win you games in the postseason.

“That’s not some mind-blowing saying or anything, it’s not earth-shattering.”

It certainly applies to how he’s treating Sunday. Ertz said he was glad to have gotten the regular-season matchup out of the way first, so Sunday won’t be his first time back at Lincoln Financial Field as an opponent.

It will be no revenge game, he said. He probably will not be trying to stick it to Nick Sirianni, with whom he had a brief dustup after the Eagles lost to the Commanders in December, which both parties downplayed after as two competitors reacting at the end of a close rivalry game.

“We talked after that night, had a good laugh, and I’ve been very impressed with all of the plays that he made,” Sirianni said. “He’s a great football player, a great Eagle. I enjoyed my time coaching him.”

However brief if it was.

The Eagles traded Ertz, arguably the best tight end in franchise history, in 2021, Sirianni’s first year, for a fifth-round pick and a little-used cornerback. They couldn’t keep Ertz and Dallas Goedert, Howie Roseman said at the time, a reality that existed long before Roseman pulled the trigger on the deal before the trade deadline.

» READ MORE: Why the Eagles traded Zach Ertz | Jeff McLane

Off he went to Arizona, where he helped the Cardinals to the playoffs before injuries the next two seasons brought career mortality closer than it had ever been.

You’d struggle to find anyone more juiced than Ertz will be Sunday, given the ride. The football gods delivered, and Ertz will be back looking to play spoiler to an Eagles season that has for months seemed destined for New Orleans.

“I understand the environment it’s going to be,” Ertz said. “I understand how I’m going to be received this time versus last time. Everyone knows how I feel about that building, the people in that building, the people in that community. Our foundation is still doing work out there for a reason. But at the same time, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that we’re giving ourselves a chance to win the football game. When the whistle blows, it’s not going to be about the nine years I had there, it’s going to be about trying to make as many plays for this team as possible.

“I’m not going out there with a chip on my shoulder or trying to prove to people X, Y, or Z. I’m just trying to go out there and be the best version of myself.”

Something he found with Washington, of all franchises.