Former Stanford Tight End Welcomes Twin Boys with Soccer Star Wife Ahead of 2024 Season

Dylan Grausz | Aug 26, 2024

Arizona Cardinals tight end Zach Ertz holds his son Madden Matthew before they play against the Dallas Cowboys at State Farm Stadium in Glendale on Set. 24, 2023. / Joe Rondone/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK

During his 11-year NFL career, Zach Ertz has established himself as one of the league’s most prominent tight ends, making three Pro Bowls while also helping lead the Philadelphia Eagles to a Super Bowl LI title. But yet, as Ertz now enters his 12th season in the league with a new team, he will look to make the 2024 campaign his best one yet, getting a little added motivation with the recent addition of his new twin boys.

Ertz, who joins the Commanders to fight for the starting spot after spending the 2023 season with the Cardinals and Lions, recently announced that his wife, former USWNT star Julie Ertz, gave birth to twin boys, Kace and Kyren, on Saturday. With the couple previously having a son in August of 2022, the birth of the twins now expands their family to five.

Signing a one-year deal with Washington and reuniting with former Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury, Ertz will have added motivation as he attempts to revitalize his career and prove that he has plenty left in the tank with the Commanders.

In seven games last year, the 33-year-old former Stanford football star caught 27 passes for 187 yards and a touchdown before injuring his quad in October. After the Cardinals released him in November, he then signed with the Detroit Lions’ practice squad, remaining with the team until their NFC Championship Game loss to the 49ers. 

Ertz’s career was at its peak when he played with the Eagles, as in addition to his three Pro Bowls and Super Bowl win, he set the single-season NFL record for receptions by a tight end in the 2018 season, catching 116 passes for 1,163 yards and eight touchdowns, setting career highs in all categories and cementing himself by that point as one of the game’s best at his position. He then followed that up with a solid 2019 season where he caught 88 passes for 916 yards and six touchdowns before injury plagued 2020 and 2021 seasons ultimately led him to join the Cardinals.

On Stanford’s football team from 2009-2012, Ertz did not play in his true freshman season and redshirted, before bursting onto the scene in 2010 when he caught 16 passes for 190 yards and five touchdowns. His best season came in his final year in 2012 when he caught 69 passes for 898 yards and six touchdowns, en route to being selected to the first-team All-Pac-12 list, being named a unanimous All-American and winning the Ozzie Newsome award. 

A member of a young Commanders team, with rookie Jayden Daniels expected to be the team’s starting quarterback, Ertz will come in and provide a veteran presence to the new-look franchise, hoping to help Daniels evolve into one of the league’s best passers and turn Washington into a serious threat within the league.