USA Today
'Intimidators' Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson Couldn't Break Thanksgiving
PHILADELPHIA – You might think Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson sitting down together for Thanksgiving dinner would have broken the holiday.
It survived, though.
There were just two eight-pound turkeys on their table, shared by Dickerson’s fiancé Brooke, at the Dickerson home on Thursday.
There was plenty of other stuff, though, including ham, mac ‘n cheese, and much more to satisfy the appetite of the left side of the Eagles' offensive line that weighs close to 800 pounds combined.
“Thanksgiving time you want to spend it with friends and family my family wasn’t in town, they were with the rest of my family in North Carolina, same thing with Jordan,” said Dickerson at his locker on Friday afternoon.
“We do a good job around the locker room of guys who don’t have a place to go we invite other people to come. We always make sure guys have a place to go and they’re welcome at anybody’s house.”
Mailata, 25, and Dickerson, 24, are good friends, and both have their unique brand of humor.
Still, they are quite different from each other.
Aside from both being very good at their jobs, Mailata is very outgoing and can also carry a tune with the best singers around and was a big part of the Eagles' soon-to-be-released album, ‘A Philly Special Christmas.’
READ MORE: Jordan Mailata, Jason Kelce, Lane Johnson Making Christmas Special with Album Release
Dickerson is more reserved and prefers spending his time woodworking and restoring old trucks and cars. The left guard lists two of his many hobbies in the team’s media guide as “mowing grass and Legos.”
Both are intimidating presences, something every team needs, according to center Jason Kelce.
“It’s a good trait,” said Kelce. “Everybody needs somebody like Landon Dickerson, every team does. I really love when teams have a good balance of all these different personalities and people. Every team needs that. The Bash Brothers or the guy that the other team is kind of intimidated by and Landon without question has that ability.
“So does Jordan Maliata at times. I mean just two big monstrous men that when they impose their will it’s hard for anybody to stop that. We’ve seen this from Landon last year, we’ve seen it from him all offseason with some of these counter players where he completely brutalizes an edge player. The physicality and be able to, when you need to let that loose, that’s a tremendous trait, especially for an offensive line to have.”
The whole intimidation factor is one of those intangibles, something the very best athletes learn at an early age, and that is to leave their off-the-field persona behind when they step between the white lines. It’s called flipping the switch.
“There’s a difference between how you are off the field and on the field,” said Dickerson. “If we acted that way all the time, I’d say 90% of us would be in jail.”
Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglesmaven.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.
