Mailata Journeys from Down Under to the Super Bowl

As Jordan Mailata sat down at his podium at Opening Night of Super Bowl LVII on February 6, 2023, he needed the media’s help with how things worked.

“Do we get the show going?” he asked in his thick Australian baritone. “I don’t know how to do this guys, it’s my first time here!”

Though he’s been a staple of the offensive line for years as a tackle, the Eagles drafted Mailata in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft, two months after the Eagles won Super Bowl LII. Mailata, originally from Sydney, Australia, never played a snap of football before being drafted. Instead, he played professional rugby for a club in Australia before he learned of an opportunity for international prospects to develop their skills and try for a spot on an NFL team’s roster.

“My old agent knew a contact with the [International Player Pathway] Program,” Mailata said, “and the rest is history.”

Mailata received a grade of 5.50 from NFL scouts through the program, which translated to being a priority undrafted free agent. His draft profile noted that he would need significant development in the game itself, especially given that he was the attacker in rugby and would need to learn how to play from the defensive stance. An NFC executive is quoted as saying that “Someone will draft him late and he’s a project, but very much a freak athlete for his size.”

That team that would draft him late became the Eagles, and Mailata spent the next five years working under the tutelage of Offensive Line Coach Jeff Stoutland, who players nickname “Stout,” as he went from zero to NFL offensive lineman.

“Stout has been the most influential person to me” on the field, Mailata remarked. “He taught me everything I know.”

Mailata’s international background means that the Super Bowl impacts him differently from his other teammates. Though he’s excited to be at the game, he doesn’t see its impact the same way.

“My goals and dreams are different from my teammates’,” he said, since he only began playing five years ago. “They’ve been dreaming of this since they were kids.”

Mailata has demonstrated growth as a player. This season, he’s only allowed six sacks in his more than 1,000 snaps, tied for 15th in the league. Pro Football Focus assigned him a grade of 76.5 this regular season. In the postseason, he’s earned a PFF grade of 86.4, the highest of any lineman in the postseason. Yet Mailata says a lot of that is due to how the offensive line plays as a unit.

“The five guys have to be in sync in order for the car to go,” Mailata said. “It’s a five-wheeled car, and once you start playing with the guy next to you, once you start playing together, you can start to get a feel of how to execute the right techniques, whether it’s on the sideline or in real time right there.”

Mailata said that he learned all of this by going to school at Stoutland University, the offensive line’s saying for learning from Stoutland that became so well-known among fans that the Eagles printed Stoutland University t-shirts that benefit the Eagles Autism Foundation. Mailata shared that’s where he learned the saying, “Hungry dogs run faster,” which was so prevalent in the Eagles’ last Super Bowl run given their constant underdog status.

“It’s an important saying,” Mailata said. “He makes sure that we’re always on top of our stuff, mentally and physically.”

Mailata also was struck by the accountability each player is held to. Not just Stoutland, but other players will hold him accountable, and he’s expected to hold his teammates accountable too.

“This is a special group, the relationship we have,” Mailata observed. “We’re able to look each other in the eye and hold ourselves accountable with each other.”

That culture comes from, in his eyes, his coaches.

“It all starts with the coaching,” he remarked. “It starts with [Head Coach Nick] Sirianni and trickles down to Stout, and trickles down to us.”

The group definitely bonded, under the leadership of Center Jason Kelce and Tackle Lane Johnson. Kelce, the longest-tenured member of the the offense (he was drafted in 2011) and the second-longest tenured member of the team behind Defensive End Brandon Graham, is someone that Mailata particularly looks up to.

“I’ve got him as my screensaver as fat Batman,” Mailata laughed as he showed the picture to the press. “You couldn’t ask for a better teammate and a leader. He leads by example.”

Though Mailata declined to go into specifics, he did say that it went beyond the field. “You see it in the way he attacks the classroom,” he said. “He walks the walk and talks the talk.”

One of Mailata’s most notable off-the-field contributions this year was his participation in A Philly Special Christmas, the Christmas album spearheaded by Mailata, Kelce, and Johnson. The album raised more than $1 million for local Philly charities.

“The Christmas album really brought us together,” Mailata said. “When Kelce and Johnson brought me into the circle trying to do the album, it was really special. To be able to sit back, grab a beer, and record a couple of Christmas songs, you see the true character of a person.”

Mailata is known in the locker room for his strong pipes. A former member of his local church choir, Mailata appeared on FOX’s The Masked Singer during the 2022 offseason. Though Mailata did go viral on the internet with his rendition of Chris Stapleton’s “Tennessee Whiskey,” he initially hoped to make the Super Bowl a different way.

“I thought about singing in it,” he recalled from his time growing up in Australia, “but definitely not playing in it.”

Mailata definitely hopes to leave a legacy stateside, but also hopes to bring American football back to Australia in a greater way, and even had some advice for potential players who, like him, wanted to learn the game from scratch.

“Dip your toe in the water,” he smiled, “drown in it, and learn how to swim.”

Featured Image: Jordan Mailata fields reporter questions at Super Bowl LVII Opening Night. (Twitter/@badel_cmail)