Brent Celek is now 30 years old and entering his ninth season with the Philadelphia Eagles. Celek has been a productive player for the Eagles over the years, but they brought in Zach Ertz in 2013 to be their new age tight-end and kind of phase Celek out. Ertz is entering his third season in the league, and that still has yet to happen and it likely won't this season either, according to Paul Domowitch of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Ertz has been dealing with a core muscle injury and has been forced to miss all of the Eagles preseason games and a lot of practice time. Ertz's status for the Eagles week one game against the Atlanta Falcons is very much in doubt, and even if he were to play, he would likely have his snaps limited. Even when Ertz was healthy last season, Celek still started 15 of the 16 games and saw more snaps even though Ertz was targeted more in the passing game.
Celek is the tight end of the two that is better at run blocking, while Ertz is better at running routes and catching passes. Celek out-snapped Ertz last season 815 to 587, and that is because Ertz was basically only used on passing downs while Celek was in there on downs where a pass play wasn't obviously necessary.
Another thing that could factor into Celek seeing more snaps again this season is the fact that the Eagles seem to be moving away from two tight-end sets this year. Celek is one of the best blocking tight-ends in the league, so he will be in there for the most part when a passing play isn't required, and head coach Chip Kelly thinks Celek doesn't get enough credit.
"I think he's underrated in terms of everything he does, I think he may be one of the best-blocking tight ends in the league but I think, you know, you saw he made a great catch on the touchdown pass from Sam Bradford going in there in the red zone. I think he's a big target. He's got real good range in terms of, if the ball's not exactly thrown on him, he can catch it. I think his run-after-the-catch is a little bit underrated. We have hit him on a couple of screens in the last two years that he's taken pretty far. I think his value to us is huge," said Kelly about Celek.
Kelly preaches being versatile, and that is exactly what Celek is. He may not be the guy that had close to 1,000 yards receiving and eight touchdowns in 2009 anymore, but he is still able to do everything well on the field and the same can't be said of Ertz right now. Ertz may be the flashier of the two players, as he puts up the big receiving numbers, but Celek does a lot of the dirty work, which is why he is likely to out-snap Ertz again in 2015.
