The Philadelphia Eagles have had to part ways with a number of their key players from last year's Super Bowl run. The group that took the biggest hit was undoubtedly the tight ends following the departure of Brent Celek and Trey Burton this offseason.

Although the team signed tight end Richard Rodgers, tight end Zach Ertz is now seen as the veteran of the group. According to Les Bown of philly.com, he is looking to take on a leadership role moving forward:

“The room’s definitely going to be different,” Ertz said. “It’s an opportunity for me to kind of move on to the next stage of my career, kind of be the veteran. I was listening to Richard Rodgers speak when he was introduced, [saying] ‘It’s going to be great to finally have a veteran tight end [to learn from].’ I was like, ‘Dude, I’m a year older than you.’ . . . Richard’s a very talented tight end, we’re excited about what he can do. We’ve got three talented tight ends that don’t know what they don’t know, but they have a lot of potential.

“Obviously, we lost two great people, first and foremost, and two really talented football players. Trey is moving on to something that he’s clearly earned, a [tight ends] room . . . where he’s the head guy. Brent, obviously, played 11 years here, which is phenomenal. He’ll probably go down as the best or second-best tight end to ever play here.”

While it was disappointing to see two vital pieces of their championship run go, the move to feature Ertz at the position has been a long time coming.  The former Stanford product has established himself as the go-to receiving option among Philadelphia's tight ends after registering at least 70 catches and 800 yards in each of the last three seasons. However, he proved to be a much more reliable red zone threat last year when he tallied a career-high eight touchdowns.

The new dynamic may also see him play more of an every-down role as opposed to coming in on just passing situations. Although it is one of the least glamorous jobs on offense, being a leader requires that he becomes just as formidable a blocker as he is a receiver.

Despite the departure of Celek and Burton, this group of tight ends is still extremely crowded. Outside of Ertz and Rodgers, Billy Brown, Adam Zaruba, and Joshua Perkins are also currently listed on the roster.