Could Chicago Bears find the answer at tackle with this prospect?

NFL Comparison for Daniel Faalele

There truly is no NFL comparison for someone when you have not seen someone so big before. The one that many quickly go to is Jordan Mailata. That is because the current Eagles franchise left tackle was also an Australian-born rugby player who turned into an NFL stud.

Mailata took a different path, though as he was drafted in 2018 with minimal football experience. By 2020, he was in the starting lineup and in 2021 he was signed to a big-money extension.

Considering Faalele started at a younger age and is more seasoned through his college career, it should not take two years to get him on the field, but the argument is that the upside is just as high.

NFL.com compared him to Zach Banner, which is interesting as well. Banner went to USC as a star recruit but never lived to his name as he dealt with weight issues. He was supposed to be the Steelers’ right tackle starter but wound up getting injured.

While Banner is a fair comparison of a massive human, the big difference is that a lot of the weight Banner put on was bad weight, whereas a lot of the weight that Faalele has is just from how big he is. It also had been noted that Faalele lost a lot of weight in 2020, but is still just down to 384 pounds.

Still, the combination of Banner and Mailata speaks to the upside and downside, but also the patience that may need to be involved. It also may be fair to think that their journeys are why Faalele has more experience than Mailata and has been working on his weight since before he got into the NFL, which is what Banner did.  The two also went in the seventh round of the NFL draft, and Faalele will be long gone by then. The question becomes how much higher?