Good thing the Eagles locked down Jordan Mailata last fall.
Had they not, the left tackle might be off to Hollywood after his rookie deal would have expired following the 2022 season.
Mailata was a smash on the hit TV show, The Masked Singer on Wednesday night.
The 6-9, 380-pound former Australian rugby player sang Ed Sheeran’s song, “Perfect.” After the performance, Mailata was revealed as Thingamabob, a costume that had a large headpiece with large ears.
HollywoodLife had an exclusive interview with Mailata about his performance on the show and asked him whether he thought about pursuing a career in music instead of the NFL.
“When I was like 17 maybe, I don’t know. I was raised around a family of musicians, raised in church, and was singing all the time,” Jordan told HollywoodLife. “I didn’t really think I was going to take it seriously. There were a couple of people like my teacher who said I could have a career in music if I really focused on it. For my size, I was always a big kid and thought sports would be my career.”
Sports have turned out well for Mailata.
He began as a rugby player in his home country before NFL executives invited him to try out for their International Player Pathway Program.
Mailata had never played football and admitted his only knowledge of the sport was watching the Super Bowl. He said offensive tackle when asked what position he would like to try. It was a position he knew of from watching the movie, “The Blind Side.”
He went to train at Florida’s IMG Academy in February of 2018.
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It was there that Jeff Stoutland, the Eagles’ offensive line coach, met Mailata.
Stoutland was just about to leave on a golfing vacation with his buddies when Eagles GM Howie Roseman called him and said he wanted him to go to IMG to check out this big lineman he had heard about.
So, Stoutland hopped on a plane and went to Florida.
“I was like, this guy’s different,” said Stoutland recalling the first time he worked out Mailata. “I mean big, giant guy, who can move his feet, change direction, has enough flexibility, but needs to learn how to use his hands, how to use his eyes, all the little things. The guy’s never played football before. What was his mental toughness going to be like?
“Those Pop Warner days that you used to grind out as a little guy when the toughness of football is brought into you, he didn’t do any of that stuff. There were a lot of those question marks in my mind, but I just said to the (scouting) guys, ‘This is an unusual guy, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, but if he’s hanging around later on (in the draft), we should look at this guy.’ I’m very happy he’s here.”
The Eagles took a flyer on Mailata in the 2018 draft, selecting him in the seventh round, the 233rd player taken that year out of 256 players who were selected.
So happy are the Eagles with how quickly Mailata developed that they gave him a four-year contract extension for $64 million that will keep him in Eagles colors through 2025.
Now though, Mailata may incorporate music into his life and release some of his music after his performance moved one of the judges on The Masked Singer, Ken Jeong, to tears, per HollywoodLife.
“It’s really made me think about that, about releasing my music,” he told HollywoodLife. “I’m just a sh*tty writer. I can’t write music to save my life. We’ll see what happens. It’s in the cards now. The whole experience of being on The Masked Singer gave me the confidence that I could perform and that I do have a decent voice.”
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism