Jordan Mailata was a name nobody knew in the 2018 NFL draft. Hailing from Bankstown, Australia, there were no NFL dreams and aspirations. Instead, Rugby was the goal for Mailata, and he played for the South Sydney Rabbitohs until 2018, when he entered the NFL draft. It would be a new experience for him but for everyone around NFL circles as well.<\/p>\n
He was drafted by the Eagles in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL draft. Analysts summed up the pick as a random throw of the dart without many expectations. Everyone saw the extreme physical talent that Mailata possessed but was unsure if it would ever pan out.<\/p>\n
He had zero experience playing American Football and would have to travel to a foreign country and catch up in experience against players who have played the sport their entire lives. Yet, the pick will go down as one of the best in Howie Roseman\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
This week, PFF revealed their top-graded players<\/a> in the NFL, with Mailata making the list and being the highest-graded offensive player through 13 weeks. According to PFF, he\u2019s only allowed 10 pressures this season from over 270 pass-blocking snaps. What\u2019s even more apparent is the success Mailata has had with run-blocking.<\/p>\n His absurd combination of size and speed allows him to not only move defensive linemen off the line of scrimmage but to run upfield and decimate linebackers and defensive backs. Ever since Mailata came back from injury after the Dallas Cowboys game, Saquon Barkle and the Eagles run game have taken another step.<\/p>\n Against the Washington Commanders<\/a> and Los Angeles Rams<\/a>, the Eagles had 228 and 316 yards on the ground, respectively. This past week, against the number one rush-defending team, the Baltimore Ravens<\/a>, Barkley still managed to get over 100 yards on the back of Mailata and the rest of the Eagles offensive line.<\/p>\n Coming into the season, not many people would have ranked Mailata over his teammate Lane Johnson. However, \u00a0Mailata is the clear number one guy on this Eagles offensive line. Not only that, but Mailata has a clear-cut case as the best offensive lineman in the entire NFL. While others are similarly as good at pass-blocking, and similarly as good at run-blocking, nobody in the league is as good at both as Mailata is.<\/p>\n There are other competitors out there, like Detroit Lions<\/a> tackle Penei Sewell or Tampa Bay Buccaneers tackle Tristan Wirfs. However, Mailata has the pedigree, the team success, the tape, and now the grades to back up his claim. He\u2019ll have another opportunity to show it in two weeks when T.J. Watt and the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> come to Philadelphia after they play the Carolina Panthers<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n All in all, Mailata\u2019s story is incredible, going from no football experience to one of the best players in the league. It was a home run pick for Howie Roseman and should continue to be one for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n Main Image: Eric Hartline – USA Today Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jordan Mailata has had a one-of-a-kind journey through the NFL, and while it took him awhile, the fruits of his labor are starting to pay off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4564,"featured_media":203509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,54],"tags":[8721,1189,7393,5901],"class_list":["post-203477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eagles","category-editorials","tag-jordan-mailata","tag-lane-johnson","tag-philadelphia-eagles-news","tag-tristan-wirfs"],"modified_by":"Isaac Zuniga","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4564"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203477"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203510,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203477\/revisions\/203510"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The Best Offensive Tackle in the NFL<\/h3>\n