Brutal season for Zach Ertz.

He wanted a new Eagles contract, struggled through the opening weeks, and then found himself on injured reserve after suffering a high ankle sprain in the Ravens game.

Now, some clown named Mike Lombardi says the Birds were trying to trade Ertz, making his comments during a recent appearance on 94 WIP ahead of the November 3rd deadline:

“I don’t think they’re in any buy mode. I think they’re re-doing everybody’s contract to book money into next year. Remember, we’ve had this conversation, they’re 90 million, or 75 million over the cap. They can do it. They redid Fletcher Cox’s deal not because they want to bring players in for this year, but because I think they want to be able book some of their costs this year into next year, which helps them reduce their cap debt.

“They’re going to have to clean up this thing. If they take on a salary this year, they’re really hurting themselves next year. They’ve been trying to trade Zach Ertz for the last two weeks. They can’t do it, because nobody wants to take on the salary. A lot of teams are really reluctant to take on salary at this point, knowing that they have to book it into next year. The Ravens made that trade (Yannick Ngakoue) because they have a ton of cap room.”

To clarify, the Eagles could have traded Ertz initially, but can’t right now because he’s on IR with a “minor injury.” You can only trade guys off IR if they’re designated with a “major injury,” so the whole scenario is now moot. Albert Breer explained this at Sports Illustrated:

“The Eagles have gotten a lot of calls on their players as well, which makes sense given how their season’s gone and where their cap is the next couple of years. Alshon Jeffery is very clearly available. There have been calls on tight end Zach Ertz, too, and Philly delaying a day or two on moving Ertz to IR raised some eyebrows—this year, you have to designate guys on IR as having major or minor injuries, and guys categorized as having minor injuries can’t be traded. The Eagles designated Ertz as a minor injury, so that’s that on him.” 

But Lombardi is right that there’s just not much wiggle room for the Eagles moving forward. Ertz signed his last extension in 2016 and hits the cap at $12.4 million this year and next year. If they got out of his contract ahead of the 2021 season, they’d eat a dead cap hit of $7.7 million.

Here’s the full audio:

 

They’ve been trying to trade Zach Ertz for the last two weeks