2019 Eagles Roster Preview: Offensive Tackle
Previewing the OTs in our next positional preview heading into the 2019 season. This is another position where the Eagles are pretty stacked with both high-end talent and depth.
The Eagles have two pro-bowl starters in Jason Peters and Lane Johnson, and quality depth pieces in the first-round pick Andre Dillard and Halapoulivaati Vaitai (big V). Big V has been practicing at RG this off-season while Brandon Brooks is rehabbing his torn Achilles, but the assumption is that once Brooks is healthy the assumption is Big V will go back to his role as a backup tackle.
Jason Peters
The future Hall of Famer wasn’t his usual dominant self in 2018, but coming off a torn ACL that was to be expected. Per PFF, he ended the year with a 69.5 grade, which was the 39th rated tackle overall. This was also the worst grade he has received since his first year playing in 2005. The issue with Peters was not one serious injury, but a collection of nagging ones. He did not miss a start, but he missed snaps in 13 of the 18 games. With that said, the talk of his injuries are a little overblown, as he only missed significant snaps in 2 games, and played in less than 90% of the snaps in only 4 games total.
The hope with Peters is that he will return to form another year removed from the injury. Using the PFF player grades again, he had not finished with a grade below 80 since 2009. With that said, it could just be that father time is finally starting to catch up with him. There aren’t many left tackles that are able to play into their age 37 season, but Peters is an athletic freak so I wouldn’t put it behind him. He is currently the 2nd oldest starting left tackle, with Andrew Whitworth of the Rams the only player that is older. The 2019 season will almost certainly be his last with the team, as they restructured his contract and also drafted his replacement in Andre Dillard. So, the Eagles are hoping he has one last great season in him before they move on.
Lane Johnson
Johnson, similar to Peters, also struggled with nagging injuries over the course of the 2018 season. He suffered a high ankle sprain at the beginning of the year but did not miss a start with that injury. He was clearly hampered, but props to him for toughing it out. Unfortunately, he suffered a sprained MCL in week 8 and had to miss a start because of that. He started to look like the Lane we’re used to seeing towards the end of the season, and he ended up being graded out as the 12th ranked tackle overall, with a 78.1 rating.
Clearly healthy heading into 2019, the Eagles are hoping that Johnson will look like he did in 2017 when he was among the best tackles in the NFL. That season he faced a murders row of talent in Von Miller, Khalil Mack, and Demarcus Lawrence (twice) and stonewalled each of them. It was a little different in 2018, when he gave up strip-sacks in back to back games against the Titans and Vikings in weeks 4 and 5, respectively. Only 29 years old, Lane should have a couple more dominant seasons left in him before age starts to catch up.
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Andre Dillard
Dillard, the first-round pick out of Washington State, is an interesting position where the Eagles love him but also hope he doesn’t have to play a single snap his rookie season. He was drafted to be the left tackle of the future, but for 2019 his role is to backup Jason Peters and absorb as much knowledge as he can from the legend. Make sure to read our deep dive on him when he was drafted, but the story on him is that he was the best pass-blocking OT in the draft but needs to work on run-blocking. He also needs to add more strength as he was not able to move defensive linemen on running plays to create a hole for the RB.
He has the perfect opportunity to do so in his rookie year where he figures to not get much playing time. Peters did have the habit of missing snaps in 2018 so Dillard will most likely have to play some snaps, but unless Peters misses significant time Dillard shouldn’t see the field too often. Not only will Dillard have the year to get acclimated to the NFL, but he also gets to learn behind Peters who is known to mentor the younger offensive linemen. The Eagles hope to not have to worry about tackle for the next couple years with Dillard and Johnson at LT and RT, respectively.
Halapoulivaati Vaitai
Big V had the unenviable position in 2018 of having to come in cold in the majority of games when Peters went out with an injury. He did not play as well as he did in 2017, ending the season with the low grade of 47.7. While the Eagles obviously wish he played better, they can understand the difficulty of having to play in 13 total games but never knowing when his next snap will be.
So far in his Eagles career, big V has only played tackle, but with Brandon Brooks nursing his torn Achilles big V has been the starting right guard in all off-season activities. Brooks is on track to start week 1 so big V might not have to play RG at all, but it is interesting that the Eagles decided to give him all the starter reps instead of Stefen Wisniewski. Wisniewski was the backup when Brooks originally went down against the Saints. It is still to be determined who will be Brooks’ official backup once he is healthy, but the assumption here is that it will be Wisniewski while big V will backup Johnson at RT. The Eagles are most likely giving these reps to big V now to see how he responds and if he has a future at the position since they are set at tackle.
Jordan Mailata
Mailata is the Eagles ultimate wild card. He had never played football before when the Eagles drafted him in the 7th round of the 2017 draft, as he was a rugby player in Australia. He realized he no longer had a future in the sport when his team wanted him to drop so much weight that was not possible for a 6’8 behemoth of a man. As one can imagine, Mailata struggled at the beginning of his Eagles tenure. Learning the NFL with no experience is a difficult task for anybody, but he made an impressive improvement over the course of the off-season. He looked so good in his last pre-season game that NFL analyst Ross Tucker thought he had the future of an all-pro.
The Eagles have spoken positively of Mailata all off-season, but it is hard for us to know since we have not seen him play since August of 2018. It would be an incredible development if he was able to be the official backup at either tackle spot considering he just picked up the sport a year ago. Last off-season he strictly practiced at left tackle, but with the addition of Dillard, the Eagles have moved Mailata over to the right side.
If he does start to meet the potential that Ross Tucker thinks, he could become valuable trade bait as the Eagles are transitioning to a team that needs to build through the draft after the Carson Wentz extension. Mailata is a virtual guarantee to make the roster, but his future with the Eagles is undecided since he is so new to the sport.
Featured photo: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
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