Why Mailata wasn't really as bad as he looked in Eagles' win over Texans

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We're not used to seeing edge rushers tear right around Jordan Mailata like he was Antone Davis.

The Eagles’ usually reliable left tackle gave up a couple third-quarter sacks to resurgent veteran edge rusher Jerry Hughes Thursday night. Hughes, the 34-year-old long-time Buffalo Bill, had two of the Texans’ four sacks in the Eagles’ 29-17 win in Houston.

And Mailata was the victim both times.

Nick Sirianni said the reality was much different than the appearance.

Sirianni said Mailata was beating himself up for the two sacks, but he said he’s beating himself up more.

“You know, I’m going to take full responsibility for both of those (because) we weren’t synced up,” he said. “We were not synced up with our protection and our route concepts and that’s 100 percent on me and nobody else. 

“There was a concept we were running and one side was quick game and the other side was more rhythm game and I didn’t teach the read well enough with Jalen and we kind of got into a pure progression instead of a split-field read, and what ended up happening was we got caught with the ball in our hand and we had to hold it a little bit and Jordan was just taking the set we told him to and that’s going to happen.

“I screwed him up on both of those. Jordan beats himself up about it, but I should be beating myself up about it more and I am.”

The Eagles did score 29 points, convert 50 percent of their third downs and put together three long touchdown drives — 75, 79 and 91 yards.

But the offense was out of sync for stretches Thursday night, and certainly a road game on a short week can contribute to that. The Eagles seemed to be fighting themselves at times on both sides of the ball, but we didn’t really see the rhythm that this offense often gets into. They were able to overcome it because Jalen Hurts, Miles Sanders and Dallas Goedert were so good, but those two sacks both came on clunky plays that were uncharacteristic for this offense. 

“Full responsibility on both of those sacks are on me,” Sirianni said. “So when we put our tape up on Monday when the guys get back in, every time we put our tape up, peoples’ numbers are up there if they did the wrong thing.

“And on both of those it’s going to say ‘loss,’ it’s going to say ‘dash,’ and it’s going to say ‘Nick.’ And nobody else. Because I screwed that up.”

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