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Zach Ertz is Arizona Cardinals' nominee for Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year

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José M. Romero, Arizona Republic
·4 min read
Sep 11, 2022; Glendale, Arizona, United States; Arizona Cardinals tight end Zach Ertz (86) stretches before playing against the Kansas City Chiefs at State Farm Stadium.
Sep 11, 2022; Glendale, Arizona, United States; Arizona Cardinals tight end Zach Ertz (86) stretches before playing against the Kansas City Chiefs at State Farm Stadium.

Tight end Zach Ertz is the Arizona Cardinals' Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year, the team announced Tuesday. The award is in recognition of his community service activities off the field as well as his play on the field.

As a nominee, Ertz will receive a donation of up to $40,000 in his name to a charity of his choice.

Out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, Ertz had 47 catches for 406 yards with four touchdowns in 10 games this season. He and his wife Julie work with charities both in Arizona and Philadelphia, where they lived before Ertz joined the Cardinals.

"Yeah, he's been tremendous, you know, his work ethic, intensity, focus, leadership, all those things that you heard about," Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury said of Ertz. "He's been that and more, I'd say. I mean, he's everything you want in your organization to be around on a daily basis. It's unfortunate hengot hurt. But that doesn't surprise me that he got nominated for that."

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For the fifth consecutive year, all 32 team winners will be highlighted as finalists and recognized for their community work during the week leading up to Super Bowl LVII, which will take place in the Phoenix metro area.

The 2022 “Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year” will be announced during NFL Honors, an awards special held the Thursday before Super Bowl LVII. The winner will receive a $250,000 donation to the charity of his choice.

All 32 Man of the Year nominees will wear a helmet decal beginning this weekend through the end of the season to recognize their accomplishments on and off the field.

"As outstanding as he’s been on the field throughout his career, Zach’s commitment to giving back is even more exceptional and makes him such a fitting selection for this award,” Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill said in a statement from the team. "Whether in Philadelphia or now in Arizona, Zach and Julie Ertz are making a meaningful difference in so many areas. Among the most notable is their passionate commitment to fighting hunger and food insecurity, a cause they championed almost immediately upon arriving in Arizona last year."

The Ertz Family Foundation and The Athletes’ Corner have teamed up again to fight hunger through the on-field performance of the team. The two foundations and their “Score More n’ Feed More” initiative have provided meals to Arizona food banks for every touchdown the Cardinals score this season. This year, the Ertz family pledged to help provide 500,000 meals to food banks.

Quick outs

  • The Cardinals returned to work from their bye week last week. OL Josh Jones said he went home to Houston to reconnect with family, and DL Zach Allen had a spa day in Tucson.

  • Wide receivers Greg Dortch and Rondale Moore could be ready to return from injury this week, Kingsbury said. He seemed optimistic about Dortch, who has "made big strides," Kingsbury said. On the offensive line, guard Will Hernandez and center Rodney Hudson are at least another week away and won't be ready for this week, Kingsbury said.

  • CB Byron Murphy, who has missed the past three games with a back injury, is day to day and feeling better. But he might not yet be ready to play this week, Kingsbury said.

  • The Cardinals on Tuesday announced that the team has re-signed DL Michael Dogbe and LB Blake Lynch to the practice squad.

  • Jones and Allen are taking part in the NFL's "My Cause My Cleats" campaign this season, joining more than half the team. Allen will auction off custom cleats with the proceeds going to Team Impact, an organization that matches children facing serious illness and disability with college sports teams. Jones will support Boys & Girls Club of America. "My parents, every time they had to go to work and I wasn't doing anything structural like AAU basketball, they would take us to the Boys and Girls Club, me and my brother, "Jones said. "And that was just a great outlet for my parents to be able to just have that. ... So just being able to go there and, and still be able to communicate with other kids and, and kind of just grow up there, you know, I feel like I owe a lot to them."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Cardinals' Zach Ertz is team's nominee for NFL Man of the Year