Entering his ninth season as an Eagle, Zach Ertz could see the writing on the wall. With the continued emergence of tight end Dallas Goedert and a rough four-win 2020 season at the front of mind, it seemed certain the two parties would be headed for a divorce.
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But finding a landing spot for the three-time Pro Bowler was taking longer than originally anticipated. Expecting to be dealt before the preseason, Ertz was still on the roster when training camp arrived. So on a whim, the veteran tight end decided to dye his hair bleach blond.
“I essentially hadn’t been there all offseason. I had ankle surgery so I was missing OTAs anyway. And I showed up for training camp with blond hair,” Ertz said on his former teammate Jason and Travis Kelce’s New Heights podcast. “I don’t regret much about my time in Philly or this career, but the one thing I do regret is kind of that phase, showing up to training camp with blond hair.”
The elder Kelce, who played alongside Ertz for over eight seasons, was as sure as anyone that the southern California native would get dealt before games started. He was so confident that he put his own head of hair on the line.
“It was so obvious, unfortunately, that my time was probably coming to an end, that Jason was like, ‘Bro, when are you getting traded? You’re going to get traded any day now. If you’re still on the team Week 1 then I’ll dye my hair,’” Ertz recalled. “I don’t think I had anything to lose in this situation.”
And as the summer days rolled on, Ertz continued to wait for a trade that didn’t materialize — at least not before the Eagles’ Week 1 game against the Atlanta Falcons. So when the longtime teammates ran out onto the field at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, they were rocking a matching hairdo.
“I just wanted Zach to have something to look forward to if he was still on the team, like, ‘At least Jason dyed his hair to match,’” Kelce recalled.
Most importantly, Ertz’s wife and former U.S. women’s national team star Julie Ertz, who was also a guest on this week’s episode, said she liked her husband’s new look.
“That’s really all that matters, honestly,” Zach quipped.
As for Kelce, Ertz referred to him as Guy Fieri as both the hosts and guests reacted to this image of a blond Kelce, that Jason called “the worst photo of me possible.”
“I don’t think Kylie [Kelce] liked your hair as much as I liked Zach’s hair,” Julie joked.
Ertz remembers his Philly days
While on with the Kelce brothers, Ertz was also asked to reflect on his time in Philly.
“When you spend nine years somewhere, you’re going to always have a natural affinity for the place,” Ertz said. “Unfortunately … I wasn’t able to play my whole career [in Philadelphia].”
But what Ertz most appreciated from his time on the Eagles were his teammates. After getting drafted in 2013, Ertz quickly inserted himself into a young Eagles foundation designed to remain intact for years — one that also included Kelce, Brandon Graham, Fletcher Cox, and Lane Johnson.
“The thing I look back on fondest is our core group of guys that we had together for a long period of time, with you, Lane, BG, Fletch, myself,” Ertz said. “It wasn’t easy all the time for any of us. Like there were times we’d get killed in the media or whatever it was, and I always knew you four always had my back regardless of what we were going [through]. And I hope you guys felt the same about me.
“And it is a little emotional talking about — I don’t know why — but just going through that, just being around the guys. No one is going to remember about how many yards or catches or starts we had, but I do remember the day-to-day, grinding, the stories of you kicking over a trash can because you didn’t like the way a coach was treating someone else, or Lane hiding your helmet — those are the things I remember.”
Ertz’s time in Philly came to an end in November 2021 when a long-awaited trade sent him to the Arizona Cardinals. The Eagles’ single-season receptions leader played two more seasons with the Cardinals and two with the Washington Commanders. But when Ertz, who is now a free agent, returned to the City of Brotherly Love with Washington, he couldn’t get the Birds’ fight song out of his head.
“Even when [I was] on the other sideline … It’s still like subtly in the back of my mind,” Ertz admitted, “singing it as I’m over there watching.”
What’s next for Ertz?
Looking ahead, Ertz is aiming to suit up to play in his 14th NFL season, but he does not yet know where. Complicating the situation is a season-ending ACL tear that the 35-year-old suffered in a Week 14 shutout loss to the Minnesota Vikings.
But Ertz is pleased with the recovery progress he’s made and expects to be ready near the start of the season.
“We’re in a good spot. We’re like five, almost six months now from surgery, so just training every day, doing everything I can to get back to where I was,” Ertz said. “It’s a long process. There’s some long days, there’s some long weeks, some long months … it’s tough, but we’re just trying to stack these days right now.”