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The Eagles options at left tackle are dwindling, that is if Jason Peters really wants a pay raise to move spots.
Right now, the leading in-house candidates to replace an injured Andre Dillard are Matt Pryor and Jordan Mailata. The two players have been getting first-team reps at padded practices in recent days, with Pryor at left tackle on Saturday and Mailata at right tackle. Remember, Lane Johnson is still nursing an undisclosed “lower-body” injury.
“I want to make a name for myself,” Mailata told reporters. “I’m very confident this year in the player that I know I can be. Anything I can do for this team, I will do it. They have given me the opportunity of a lifetime to be here.”
The former Australian rugby player did admit there was a point in previous years — “not this year” — when he questioned whether he made the right career choice. It was an honest sentiment shared by his position coach in offseason comments to the media. He attacked the virtual workouts and raised eyebrows.
“Will that carry over to the field? Every morning when I come here, I pray that will happen,” Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland said when discussing Mailata’s offseason training. “Do I think that will happen? Absolutely. But I can’t guarantee that.”
Mailata, a seventh-round pick in 2018, has yet to appear in a regular-season game for the Eagles after hitting the injured reserve list in each of his first two seasons. His preseason starts – three of them in 2019 — were met with mixed results.
Pryor Thought Right Guard Was ‘His Job’
Pryor would seem to be the more logical choice between the two versatile offensive linemen. In fact, the sixth-round pick thought the starting job at right guard was his when Brandon Brooks was lost for the year. Then, the Eagles brought Peters back to man that spot.
“At first I thought it was [going to be my job],” Pryor told reporters on Saturday. “But of course you’re going to want to get a vet in there, especially Jason Peters. That dude can pretty much do anything, so it wasn’t really a surprise. But I’m just here to fill in where I fit in.”
Pryor has one thing that Mailata sorely lacks: experience. Real game experience.
“Matt Pryor has played games. Don’t mistake that,” head coach Doug Pederson said. “He’s played games. He’s started for us and he’s played in some big situations, and so we’re going to lean on that.”
Former Eagles left tackle Tra Thomas highlighted Pryor’s 2019 season on a recent episode of his “Inside the Trenches” show. Pryor saw action in four games (148 snaps) last year and Thomas was impressed, saying that Pryor had the potential to be “nasty.”
“I just feel like if he had that little extra dog in him, my God, he could be nasty,” Thomas told SportsRadio 94WIP. “He’s extremely aggressive, he has a good understanding of when to shoot his hands, the timing of it, and he also understands how to set based on how this defensive tackle is attacking him.”
