By Dan Ketler, Sports Talk Philly staff writer 
For years now, the Philadelphia Eagles have seen talent come and go. Since former head coach Chip Kelly decided to rid the team of any and all "distractions," also known as superstar athletes such as DeSean Jackson and LeSean McCoy, the team has been without any type of egotistical, show-stopping player on offense.
Many argue that in order to play competitive football, you need a rambunctious, loud-mouth that is able to flip the switch and play lights out.
Since Jordan Matthews rookie season, there hasn't a lot of production from him. Although he wasn’t seen as someone who was going to come out of the draft and offer immediate impact to the team, once he displayed what he could do during his rookie season, people believe he has the ability to be a leader on offense.
Last season, Matthews failed to take hold of the offense from a wide-receiving standpoint. After a season-long epidemic of drops took hold of the wide receiving unit, all hope was lost in terms of finding an offensive weapon in that position group.
The emergence of Zach Ertz is ridiculously overdue. Ertz could easily be a Top-5 tight end in the NFL. Ertz tends to tease fans by showing bursts of pure dominance. Who could forget the Gronk-like performance he displayed last year, in Week 12 against the Buffalo Bills, where he took a simple seven-yard pass and charged 41 yards down the field to give the Birds the field goal position they needed to win the game.
That’s the type of player an offense needs in order to refer to them as elite. If Ertz can consistently perform like that from week-to-week then the Eagles are that much closer to finding an identity on the offensive side of the ball.
A quarterback is the most important piece of any offense. With many changes at the position in the past couple of years, including the recent departure of former starting quarterback, Sam Bradford, the Eagles have been without any sort of elite quarterback for quite sometime. Philadelphia hasn’t seen an elite quarterback since Donovan McNabb. The position has been crawling with indecisive leaders, and that’s not what wins Super Bowls.
This upcoming Week 1 game against the Cleveland Browns will be as exciting as a game can get for an Eagles fan. This week all eyes will be looking for a savior, a leader and a playmaker in rookie quarterback Carson Wentz.
But Wentz won’t be able to do it by himself. Guys like Matthews and Ertz will need to step it up and put the Philadelphia offense on a higher pedestal than ever before.
