Mekhi Becton "A Big Loss," Though Eagles Have Several Right Guard Candidates

PHILADELPHIA – The following Eagles mission is not a recording and therefore won’t self-destruct in five seconds like the those in the fantastic Mission Impossible series. That mission? Identify a right guard. Again.

This is an every-year occurrence for Philadelphia and will be again this season after Mekhi Becton left for the Los Angeles Chargers in free agency. The Eagles will see Becton again when they travel to L.A. on Monday Night Football on Dec. 8.

The Eagles have loaded up on candidates but will any of them be good enough to replace Becton, who was a revelation after moving from tackle to guard.

“That’s a big loss, replacing Mekhi,” said Eagles left tackle Jordan Mailata.

Reporters last week tried to get what they good from Mailata about how he sees the competition.

“The competition?” Mailata said. “I didn’t realize it was a competition.”

Asked who has the job, he said, “You tell me.”

The left tackle admitted later that he knows all about the competition and was being “a (bleep)” and called it a “Howie (Roseman) question.”

The candidates to replace Becton include Tyler Steen, Kenyon Green, Trevor Keegan, Matt Pryor, and maybe rookie Drew Kendall. The Eagles begin Phase Three of their offseason program this week, so maybe more will be revealed, if only slightly, sometime soon.

“Those guys know that the opportunity is there for whoever is going to fill in,” said Mailata. “I’m not going to give you who’s running with the ones, the twos, but these guys know the opportunity, the door is wide open. They have to show us every day. You have to be consistent. Right now, it’s a competition.”

Working with a new linemate can bring its share of problems. Mailata, who has had the luxury of working with Landon Dickerson next to him at left guard since Dickerson got here in 2021, credited right tackle Lane Johnson for the ability to adjust to whoever lines up next to him, something he has been doing with multiple players since Brandon Brooks and the stability he brought to that position left after his last full-time year in 2019.

“Me and Landon have about 10,000 reps together,” said Mailata. “We count our time when we first started together at practice, OTAs, about 10,000. That’s a lot of reps. You get the timing, you get the rhythm, you get the feel, and that’s very important and I think it shows on film. When you don’t have that synchronicity the timing’s off, the rhythm’s off, the feel’s off.

“For Lane, he’s able to adapt. He’s able to find that rhythm with whoever he’s playing next to. It’s the same when Landon is not next to me and Steen’s in or Trevor Keegan. When Trevor’s in, that’s the same thing. It’s like it’s still good, but that rhythm, that feel, is not as synchronized.”

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