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Jordan Mailata gives blunt assessment of O-line after loss to Commanders
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- Jordan Mailata gives blunt assessment of O-line after loss to Commanders
Jordan Mailata gives blunt assessment of O-line after loss to Commanders originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
LANDOVER, Md. — In the wake of the Eagles' 27-10 loss to the Commanders on Sunday night, Jordan Mailata didn't hold back.
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How can an offensive line have this many communication errors in Week 8?
"It's something that's unacceptable," Mailata said. "We can't win games like that. I kind of put all the blame on us up front and put all the blame on myself because you just can't win games by not being able to be efficient in the run game, not being able to protect your QB. It kills momentum and it's just bad ball, man. Bad ball. We got to get back to work and have a good look in the mirror, man."
There's no doubt that the Eagles are playing some bad ball right now. The offense on Sunday scored the first 10 points of the game in the first quarter and was shut out the rest of the way on their way to losing a sixth straight game. It's the first six-game losing streak for the Eagles since the 2012 season.
The offensive line — despite getting back-to-back starts with the same configuration — really struggled on Sunday night, and it's hard to win games like that.
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In years past, the Eagles have been known for having strong offensive lines but that hasn't been the case this season. Heck, two of the five opening day starters aren't even on the team anymore: Lane Johnson retired and Cam Jurgens was traded to the Ravens.
But that's still no excuse for what we saw against the Commanders.
The Eagles on Sunday managed just 91 rushing yards and 25 of them came when Tanner McKee was running for his life. The running backs accounted for just 64 yards and an average of 2.67 yards per attempt.
On top of that, McKee was sacked five times for 35 yards and was hit eight times by the Commanders.
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The Commanders generated pressure on 46.5% of McKee's dropbacks, which was a season high for them, according to NextGen Stats. And the blitzes really worked. They generated 10 pressures and a sack on 12 blitzes. That's a blitz success rate of 83.3% on Sunday. The Commanders had a pressure rate of just 32.3% when they didn't send a blitz.
Even though the Eagles picked up blitzes a few times, there were way too many plays with unblocked rushers. The Commanders also had seven quick pressures (under 2.5 seconds) on blitzes. That speaks to how many times there was no one to block a rusher.
"There were execution errors and communication errors," Mailata said. "We have guys in the backfield getting TFLs. Just very inconsistent play by us up front tonight. It shows that you can't play like that in the NFL."
The Commanders have some decent players on their defensive line but were without two of their best interior linemen. And they entered the weekend with just 11 sacks in 6 games. So to let them feast the way they did was simply unacceptable.
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While it's probably unfair to just point a finger at new offensive line coach Chris Kuper, it's impossible to not wonder if Eagles would be in a much better position right now if they still had Jeff Stoutland as their O-line coach. Stoutland and the Eagles parted ways this offseason after 13 seasons together, after Stoutland had his role diminished during the 2025 season.
At the time the Eagles hired their new staff, the hope was that Kuper would be able to help ease the transition into new OC Sean Mannion's offense. That hasn't gone to plan.
When Mailata introduced himself — as he always has — as a graduate of "Jeff Stoutland University" during the Sunday Night Football introductions, it was hard to not think about the major change the Eagles went through this offseason.
There are a lot of reasons the Eagles are 2-6 right now, but the offensive line struggles should be near the top of the list.
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"You've got to keep pushing on, man," Mailata said. "I don't know any other way but having pride, coming into work and working on the stuff that we suck at, the stuff that we didn't execute. You've got to hold your head up high and keep coming to work because the guy next to you. That defense, man, they gave us so many opportunities and we let them down tonight."
