Love him or hate him, it’s hard to deny that Eagles GM Howie Roseman is a cap wizard. The way he structures contracts, along with the timing in which he hands out extensions, is unmatched in the NFL.
During the 2021 season, Howie managed to resign a handful of key players. Among them were left tackle Jordan Mailata, who received a four-year $64 million contract, and tight end Dallas Goedert, who got a four-year deal worth $57 million.
Pro Football Focus recently released a list of the 32 best contracts in the NFL. Both Mailata and Goedert cracked the list. Mailata, in fact, came in as PFF’s best contract in the entire league. Here was their reasoning:
The Eagles drafted Mailata in the seventh round in 2018 after a promising rugby career, and the 6-foot-8, 346-pound mountain of a man immediately went to work with Philadelphia offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland on refining his craft. Meanwhile, Jason Peters was still playing at a high level in his late 30s, and the Eagles traded up in the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft for left tackle Andre Dillard.
Mailata improved each year, and he finally got on the field in 2020 for 733 snaps. That, plus years of practice reps, was all Philadelphia needed to see before extending him on a four-year contract. Given the small sample size of actual gameplay, his $16 million per year extension raised some eyebrows, and understandably so.
One year later, the deal is a bargain of the highest order. Mailata earned an 87.4 overall grade with an 83.3 pass-blocking grade and 87.8 run-blocking grade, a true dancing bear with tremendous footwork for his size and lack of experience. Mailata already generated the second-most Wins Above Replacement among all tackles in 2021, behind only San Francisco 49ers tackle Trent Williams, and there’s still more room for him to grow.“
Ranking the top 32 NFL contracts ahead of the 2022 season
When the Eagles opted to give Mailata his extension, it was a pretty risky proposition. He played well in 2020, logging 10 starts with Jason Peters constantly on the injury report. But it was the only 10 starts of his career and he wasn’t even the locked in starter at left tackle entering training camp last year. He and Andre Dillard had to battle it out for the right to start. Mailata won fairly easily and was given an extension shortly after.
As PFF pointed out, Mailata was one of the best left tackles in the sport last season. On 461 pass blocking reps in 2021, Mailata only surrendered 3 sacks, 1 quarterback hit, and 20 total pressures. At just 25 years old, Mailata’s best days are still ahead of him.
PFF didn’t give their explanation on why Goedert was on the list, but it’s pretty self explanatory. He’s coming off his most productive season as a pro and should be a focal point of the offense once again in 2022. The Eagles managed to lock him up for the next four years, which is essentially all of his prime years.
Howie isn’t perfect, but he’s damn good at this whole contract extension thing. In Howie We Trust.
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