Jordan Mailata


Jordan Mailata is an Australian American football offensive tackle for the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League. He played rugby league in Australia for the South Sydney Rabbitohs in the National Rugby League in their Under 20s team.

Background

When Mailata was 17, he fainted during a rugby league workout, and needed emergency surgery to repair both the upper and lower chambers of his heart. He went on hiatus from rugby league for a year and then played for the South Sydney Rabbitohs. After seeing clips of him playing rugby league, NFL executives invited Mailata to tryout for their International Pathway Program. He went to Florida to train, and his training was part of the NFL Network show Undrafted. Prior to training for the NFL at IMG Academy in Florida, Mailata had never played American football and admitted that his knowledge of the game was minimal. When asked what position he wanted to play, he suggested that he wanted to be a left tackle since he knew of that position from the movie The Blind Side.

NFL career

Mailata was the 233rd overall pick in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft by the Eagles. Mailata became the second player to be drafted with no American high school or college experience after German Moritz Böhringer, following the path of compatriot Jarryd Hayne, who also converted from rugby league. Mailata signed a four-year deal worth $2.5 million with a signing bonus of $89,392.
On 1 September 2018, Mailata was made the initial 53-man roster for the Eagles. He was placed on injured reserve on 14 December 2018, without appearing in any games of his rookie year.
After missing the first two games of the 2019 season with a back injury, Mailata was placed on injured reserve again on 21 September 2019.
Mailata was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list by the Eagles on 29 July 2020.

Family

Mailata's parents immigrated to Australia from Samoa.