PHILADELPHIA — At 6-foot-8 and a listed weight of 365 pounds, Jordan Mailata is one of the best left tackles in the NFL, and you generally don’t reach that kind of level by being a shrinking violet.
These days Mailata is arguably the Eagles’ most quotable player and the locker room leader as the team’s NFLPA rep.
Back in the spring, Mailata put his rather weighty endorsement behind new Eagles offensive coordinator Sean Mannion despite only two years of coaching experience that topped out as Green Bay’s quarterbacks coach last season.
Mailata’s first impression of Mannion, a long-time NFL backup quarterback who learned under Sean McVay, Kevin O’Connell, Klint Kubiak, and Matt LaFleur, back in the spring?
That sentiment was revisited at training camp after Thursday’s practice, and Mailata only upped the praise.
“I think when we’re being taught the scheme, just the explanation of how the defense is going to see it and what the plan is,” Mailata said when asked about the framing of Mannion. “In those meetings, you just see like, ‘Oh, wow, that’s actually pretty smart. What didn’t I think about that?’”
Mailata wasn’t too hard on himself, though.
“You don’t think about it because you’re an offensive lineman,” Mailata smiled. “So, it’s when you get to come out here, you run the plays and you may not understand it at the time.
“And then when you go through the meetings and he breaks down everything like there’s a purpose to everything in the play and then you see it unfold and you see the the defense like kind of confused — like okay who’s covering who now in this motion? How does that affect the D-Line and the O-Line?”
Mannion has made Mailata realize “there’s a lot more than I guess I thought an offensive coordinator can bring to the table.”
That deeper layer aligns with Mannion’s coaching philosophy. Rooted in the Shanahan/McVay tree, it emphasizes marrying the run and pass games so they present similar looks—using motion, under-center alignments, play-action, and zone-blocking concepts to create hesitation and stress defenses horizontally as well as vertically.
The goal is an offense that looks complex to the defense but feels clear and efficient for the players executing it.
While most may spin Mailata’s take as a shot at recently deposed OC Kevin Patullo, that’s not the veteran’s style. And remember the big man has been in Philadelphia since 2018 and been with Super Bowl coordinators like Shane Steichen, now the head coach in Indianapolis who was just ranked as the seventh-best current play-caller in The Athletic’s poll of league defensive minds, as well as Kellen Moore, who is now the head coach in New Orleans and has piloted two No. 1 offenses.
Perhaps the praise of Mannion is hyperbole from Mailata, but imagine if it isn’t.
“Yeah, I’ve just been blown away by that evil genius.”
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