Jordan Mailata Tired Of Talking About Last Year: "I'm Only Looking Forward"

The Eagles' right tackle is even taking on more of a leadership role with Jason Kelce retired, instituting a series of sprints into the end zone during practice.

Jordan Mailata after Day 2 of Eagles training camp. / By Ed Kracz/Eagles on SI

PHILADELPHIA – What a difference a year can make.

A summer ago, the Eagles were coming off a three-point loss in the Super Bowl and the questions were about Super Bowl hangovers and what it will take to get back.

Well, the Eagles never made it back, though they looked on their way after racing to a 10-1 start before folding in a 1-6 finish.

And questions about what went wrong permeated Day 2 of Eagles training camp on Thursday.

Left tackle Jordan Mailata has had enough of it.

“I’m about goddamn tired of talking about last year,” he said following a 78-minute practice session under cloudy skies but high humidity. “I’m tired, I’ll be honest. I’m only looking forward. We can only learn so much from last year and we learned a lot.

“The direction we’re going now is forward and we gotta do that this year. Talk is cheap, but I have a really good feeling about our offense this year and our defense. If everyone can stop talking about last year, that’d be nice.”

Perhaps one of the things that went wrong was accountability and things being allowed to slide outside the realm of something the Eagles talk a lot about a lot and that is maintaining the standard.

So Mailata and Lane Johnson have instituted a policy where players have to run to the end zone after their series of reps in11-on-11 drills have been completed – both offense and defensive players. Mailata said he feels more comfortable taking on more leadership from the now-retired Jason Kelce..

"When something’s not good enough, we gotta correct it," he said. "" I’ve been given examples (of leadership). I’ve had the best examples in the room. I know what it should look like. When we fall short, we need something to pick ourselves back again."

Mailata wasn't happy with three pre-snap penalites on the offensive line on the first day of practice, including one he made on the very first rep in 11-on-11.

"That’s the stuff we can control and some of the guys may not like it (running gassers), but it’s too damn bad," he said. " Again, we’re trying to build a winning culture here and that’s the way you got to get it done.”

So, did that culture slip last year? Mind you, it was a question asked before Mailata was asked if he was tired of hearing about last year.

“I don’t think it did,” he said. “I think last year just fell the way it did. It was about controlling the things we can control and we didn’t do any of that. We didn’t make enough adjustments.

“That was last year. Certainly don’t want to feel like we did last year toward the end, coming home the first week of the playoffs. That’s a (bad) feeling. We don’t want to do that again. These are the steps we are willing to make sure that the things we didn’t control last year that we could control, we get on top of that.”

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