The Eagles have seemingly had a dominant offensive line for a quarter-century now…but is this year’s version the best we’ve seen in recent years?
“I think this is the closest unit that we've had. I think we're all closer in age so that helps a lot, and I would say this is a pretty dominant line. I don't know if it's THE most dominant line, but yeah, we’ll see,” Jordan Mailata told Ike, Spike & Fritz Tuesday. “Ask me that at the end of the season, because right now, we’re clicking on all cylinders but we're not firing on all cylinders, so big difference.”
Whatever you call them, one thing was clear Sunday: they were able tomatch Baltimore’s physicality and then some.
“Coach had a great message from the start of the week: we know our style of football but they haven't played a team like us, so they have to match our physicality,” Mailata said. “That was the message throughout the week, and sure enough, that first three quarters was just a brawl, trading punches quarter after quarter. Coach has this great saying that it’s not about who's tough, it's who's toughest the longest, and that's the mentality that we all embrace, that it's gonna be a grind and a battle and who's gonna last the longest? And that's really what it was on Sunday.”
The Ravens did a good job of avoiding double teams and combo blocks, according to Mailata, and focusing a lot more inside, which is what stifled the running game early on, but eventually, the Eagles figured it out, adjusted, and got going.
“We pride ourselves on the fundamentals, and the fundamentals of football, if you can execute a perfect double block, duo, that's how you can dominate the line of scrimmage, and they were making it hard for us to execute those blocks,” Mailata said. “The beauty of having relationships is you talk to everyone, players and coaches, about what we’re all seeing, and getting a feel if we’re seeing something different than film we’ve watched.”
Listen to Mailata’s entire visit above, as he also talks about taking the winning streak one game at a time, the final scoring drive Sunday, and more!