Top 25 Eagles Ranked: LT Jordan Mailata ‘Chasing Greatness!’
PHILADELPHIA – He has made himself into one of the top five left tackles in the NFL despite never having played a single down of organized football until he was 21.
Until then, he was a standout rugby player on fields in his native Australia.
Oh, and he can sing, and he’s just as good at that, and maybe even better, than he is at run blocking at pass protecting.
As our rankings of the top-25 current Philadelphia Eagles head to the top 10, any fan of the team knows who our 10th-ranked player is:
LT JORDAN MAILATA
Mailata, now 26, is the second offensive lineman to appear in the top 25.
His running mate at left guard, and fellow newlywed, Landon Dickerson, checked in at No. 11.
The process behind the top-25 list started with Eagles beat writers Ed Kracz and John McMullen putting together their own top 25 players independent of each other’s rankings and then assigning point values, with 25 points awarded to the player ranked first on each list, 24 to the player ranked second, and so on, with one point going to the player that was put 25th.
The highest ranking from either reporter breaks any ties in the ballot.
Here’s how the rankings shake out so far:
No. 25 – RB Kenny Gainwell
No. 24 – LB Nicholas Morrow
No. 23 – S Reed Blankenship
No. 22 – S Terrell Edmunds
No. 21 – K Jake Elliott
No. 20 – LB Nakobe Dean
No. 19 – DT Jordan Davis
No. 18 – DT Jalen Carter
No. 17 – RB D’Andre Swift
No. 16 – DT Milton Williams
No. 15 – DT Fletcher Cox
No. 14 – CB Avonte Maddox
No. 13 – DE Brandon Graham
No. 12 – CB James Bradberry
No. 11 – OG Landon Dickerson
No. 10 – LT Jordan Mailata
Mailata and Dickerson both got married during the offseason, with Mailata being the most recent to say, ‘I do,’ during a ceremony in Hawaii on July 1.
The two men should anchor the left side of the Eagles’ offensive left side of the line for years to come.
Mailata wasted little time in winning the starting job from first-round pick Andre Dillard after Jason Peters left, staking claim to the position in 2020 after arriving as a seventh-round pick in 2018.
Prior to the start of the 2021 season, he was given a contract extension that runs through 2025, with salary cap charges in 2024 ($10.7 million) and 2025 ($14.3M). Those numbers may look big, but for a left tackle, the Eagles would certainly take that salary-cap hit.
Despite taking quickly to the game, Mailata said in May that he still has plenty to improve upon, and his line coach, Jeff Stoutland, never lets him forget that.
“I just gotta keep grinding out my weaknesses and keep improving on them,” he said. “That’s the goal. … Coach Stout loves to remind me every day in passing as well, even when we’re golfing. So, yeah, it’s pretty easy to know what you need to clean up, but in saying that, the room that I was brought into had a high standard.
“I was very thankful to train with Jason Peters, Lane Johnson, Brandon Brooks, Isaac Seumalo, Halapoulivaati Vaitai, Chance Warmack. Those guys set the ceiling. Stefen Wisniewski. It would be a crime if I didn’t mention Stef. Those guys set the standard and it’s pretty easy when you’re chasing greatness, and that’s kind of the mindset I go in with every day, is just chasing greatness.”
Ed Kracz covers the Philadelphia Eagles for SI's EaglesToday.
Please follow him and our Eagles coverage on Twitter at @kracze.
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