Every year players are drafted or brought in via free agency to try to beat out an incumbent player, and Jordan Mailata, as good as he is, is no different. Already, the Eagles left tackle likes what he sees from the two experimental offensive tackles the Eagles drafted in the sixth round, Myles Hinton and Cameron Williams, but he’s not surrendering his position without a fight.
“I told (them), I said, ‘I don’t care if you come for my job, if you’re better than me, you’re going to be better than me, but I’m going to make it damn hard for you to reset, (and) I’m going to bring you along. I’m not going to keep you down. It’s not how it runs here, it’s not how we do it. I’m going to bring you along, because you’re going to make me better,'" said Mailata on Tuesday afternoon.
“I just told them 'If you’re better than me, I’ll vouch for you, but I’m going to make it damn hard. It ain’t easy, but good luck.’”
The Eagles are wrapping up Phase Two of their offseason program and getting ready for Phase Three OTAs, which begin next week.
Hinton and Williams were drafted within 16 spots of each other – Hinton at 191 overall, Williams at 207. Mailata said both were already pushing him hard, and likes what he sees.
“The effort, the grind,” he said. “A couple days we had to get on them a little bit. I got on them a little bit. Now, we’re in the second week together, and just the effort they put in the drills, when they make a mistake, they correct it the next day.
“That is showing someone is coachable. It’s not just the physical side, it’s can they learn from their mistakes and apply it the next day when we’re doing that drill. Myles and Cam are doing a great job.”
Mailata’s nurturing side – to not feel threatened but to help those around improve – came from when he entered the league in 2018 as an unheralded seventh-round pick who had never played football but instead played rugby growing up in Australia.
“It’s the culture I was brought into,” he said. “Why would I shut the door? When I came here, JP (Jason Peters), Lane Johnson, Jason Kelce, Big V (Halapoulivaati Vaitai), Isaac Seumalo. Wisniewski. Stefen Wisniewski. Man, go down the list. Chance Warmack. Those guys just welcomed me in and they brought me along. I feel like I owe it to these rookies to bring them along.”
