Chris Stapleton Can’t Contain His Excitement As NFL Player Sings “Tennessee Whiskey” Backstage At George Strait Concert

Gotta think it takes a lot to impress Chris Stapleton.

The man is undeniably one of the best voices in country music. Everybody wants to collaborate with him these days because of his powerful voice, he’s racked up so many awards that people are tired of him winning, and any song that he sings is probably going to be better than the original (as Keith Urban unfortunately learned when Stapleton covered “Blue Ain’t Your Color” at the ACM Awards last week).

Not to mention that Stapleton is just a pretty chill guy in general. Doesn’t seem to get too excited about much, always just cool, calm and collected after being in the music business for so long.

But it seems like he was shocked by the voice he heard coming from one NFL player.

Stapleton was in Philadelphia over the weekend, opening up for George Strait on one of only a handful of shows that the King will be playing this year. And naturally there were plenty of Philadelphia Eagles players in attendance, including retired Eagles center Jason Kelce (who’s notably a big fan of classic country music).

Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata was also on hand for the show, and even got a chance to meet up with Stapleton backstage. And if you’re not familiar with Mailata, he’s got an incredible voice himself, having shown it off before in Eagles team meetings and even competing on season 7 of The Masked Singer.

Mailata went viral a few years ago for his performance of Stapleton’s version of “Tennessee Whiskey” during a team meeting:

So naturally when he got the chance to meet Stapleton in person he had to run it back and sing a few bars of the song to show off his own singing chops – and he knocked it out of the park:

@jenniferjohnson4977

@Jordan Mailata held an impromptu performance backstage at the George Straight concert! Watch Chris Stapleton’s reaction. #chrisstapleton #jordanmailata #georgestrait #philadelphiaeagles #jasonkelce

♬ original sound – jenniferjohnsonunanchored

Now, a couple things about this video: Stapleton himself is six feet tall, but he looks absolutely tiny standing beside the 6’8″ offensive tackle. And along with Stapleton and Mailata, Jason Kelce was also standing there taking in the performance, looking on like a proud father as one of his former teammates showed off for a country music icon.

But Stapleton was clearly not expecting that voice to come out of an NFL player, looking around the room in shock and throwing up his hands when he heard the pipes on Mailata. And by the time the football player got to the end of the chorus, Stapleton could barely contain his excitement, bursting into applause as he hit the run in the chorus and immediately reaching out to shake Mailata’s hand and compliment him after he was done.

It’s undeniable that Mailata has a lot of talent both on and off the football field. He was even a founding member of The Philly Specials, a vocal group he formed alongside Kelce and fellow Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson, and released three Christmas album with the group so far.

I guess it’s nice for NFL players to have a backup plan when they retire…and maybe Mailata will make the jump to music when his playing days are over.