Veteran tight end Zach Ertz has returned to Philadelphia for his second stint with the Eagles, and he says he never wanted to leave.<\/p>\n
Ertz, who was drafted by the Eagles in 2013 and traded to the Cardinals in 2021, said he never knew if the Eagles would welcome him back, but always hoped they would.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was never a plan to come back,\u201d Ertz said. \u201cI never wanted to leave in the first place, so let\u2019s just put that out there. The opportunity finally arose where I could come back. There\u2019s been times I asked in the past to come back and it didn\u2019t come to fruition for whatever reason. But for me, it\u2019s just a blessing to be back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ertz played for the Commanders last year but suffered a season-ending knee injury, and he wasn\u2019t sure if he\u2019d be back in Philadelphia or anywhere else.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you told me when I got hurt that I\u2019d be back here in nine and a half months practicing for the Philadelphia Eagles, you could have signed me up then,\u201d Ertz said. \u201cFor me, this is a place I always called home. When anyone asks my favorite place to play, everyone knows it\u2019s here\u201d<\/p>\n
Ertz said there are still people in the Eagles\u2019 facility who mean a lot to him, from teammates to coaches to the cafeteria staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s special,\u201d Ertz said. \u201cIt\u2019s great to see the people I\u2019ve missed for a long time. It\u2019s special to be back, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ertz said he has spent the last nine and a months rehabbing his knee with the hopes to be ready to play as soon as he signs, but that he\u2019ll let the coaching staff decide when or if he\u2019s ready to be promoted from the practice squad to the active gameday roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s up to the coaches. I\u2019m not even on the active roster right now,\u201d Ertz said. \u201cIt\u2019s up to me to prove I can make a difference, whether it\u2019s Year 1 or Year 14.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ertz is just glad to be back in Year 14 where it all started in Year 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran tight end Zach Ertz has returned to Philadelphia for his second stint with the Eagles, and he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293664,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70],"class_list":["post-293663","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293663","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293663\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}