Eagles' Roseman on ex-rugby star Mailata: 'We're molding a piece of clay'

One of the more interesting selections in this year's NFL draft came on Day 3, when the Philadelphia Eagles traded up in the seventh round to select former rugby player Jordan Mailata.

Mailata, who has never played football, stands 6-foot-8 and weighs 345 pounds. Eagles general manager Howie Roseman believed it was a "strange" scenario trading future picks to select the towering Australian, but knew it was a unique opportunity.

"He's a fascinating prospect," Roseman told MMQB's Peter King. "With a lot of these guys, you can see what they're going to be. With this guy, we don't know his floor, and we don't know his ceiling. With this guy, we're molding a piece of clay."

Roseman and his staff were clearly fascinated by the athletic potential of Mailata, who will begin his NFL career as an offensive tackle.

"Our line coach, Jeff Stoutland, went to his workout and came back raving about his work ethic and his athletic ability," Roseman said. "We saw this guy had rare athleticism and was physical and violent. Traits of that body type and that athleticism are hard to find. We understand it'll be a process. He's 21."

It's easy to question why Philadelphia used a draft pick to select Mailata instead of attempting to sign him as an undrafted free agent, but the Super Bowl-winning executive did not want to risk losing him to another club.

"We'd be kicking ourselves if we lost out on him because of a seven," he said. "He's with us now, and if he fails, we can sleep at night. We had 11 picks for next year, so we felt it was something we could afford to do."

The last Australian rugby player to try his hand at an NFL career was Jarryd Hayne, who was signed by the San Francisco 49ers in 2015. Hayne warned Mailata on the difficulties of learning an NFL playbook.

"You can go into the NFL and understand a little bit of what you're going to learn, but until you sit down in a room and see the playbook, the defensive schemes, it just blows your mind," Hayne told Hayley Byrnes of NRL.com. "I went in there with some idea, like 'oh yeah, I kind of get it' but not only do you have to learn all the schemes, but you also change them every week."