Can Lane Johnson really be better than ever? originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
Maybe it’s because we spend so much time focused on the future Hall of Famer who plays center. Maybe it’s because we’re so dazzled by the stud left tackle who never played organized football before two years ago. Maybe it’s because we’re so wrapped up in the intriguing second-round prospects the Eagles drafted the last two years.
Whatever the reason, it seems like Lane Johnson never gets his just due. He’s kind of the forgotten man on the Eagles’ offensive line, but after finally getting his ankle healthy after 3 ½ nightmarish years, Johnson is having a monster training camp, and as he goes into his 10th season, he promises the best is yet to come.
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“I feel like my best football is coming,” Johnson said Saturday. “I feel like this age, next two years, will be prime.”
Johnson turned 32 in May, and although he made his third straight Pro Bowl in 2019, this is the first time he’s been totally healthy since he first hurt his ankle in London in October of 2018.
How good is Johnson when he’s healthy?
“Lane to me is one of the best tackles in the world,” Nick Sirianni said Saturday. “He's the best right tackle in the world. To be able to say that about guys on your roster, that's a cool thing to have.
“’Lane, you are the best right tackle in the world.’ That's how my eyes see it, that's how people in our building see it, that's how our offensive coaches see it. The defensive staff sees it the same way.”
The first few years of Johnson’s career were marred by suspensions — four games in 2014 and 10 games in 2016.
But from 2017 through 2019, he made three straight Pro Bowls, and in 2017 became the Eagles’ first First Team All-Pro right tackle since Hall of Famer Bob Brown in 1968.
That Lane Johnson — the 2017 through 2019 version — is the one he expects people to see this year.
If not better.
“I’m definitely a lot bigger and stronger than what I was during the Super Bowl year,” Johnson said. “Whatever I’ve lost in speed I’ve made up for in power as I’ve gotten older. I feel much better than I did last year.
“Right now I feel fast. I’m around 330, I feel good and just trying to keep that rolling. Early in my career I played around 315, 320, and now I guess it’s easier to keep on weight when you get older. As long as it’s not slowing me down too much. I feel good, I feel ready.”
The Eagles had one of the NFL’s best offensive lines last year with Isaac Seumalo missing most of the season, a hobbled Johnson at right tackle and five different right guards. With a solidified lineup of Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Kelce, Seumalo and Johnson, they should be even better.
Scary.
Seumalo and Johnson have been teammates for seven years now, but they’ve never played next to each other. Seumalo started two games at right guard in 2016, but that’s when Johnson was out and Allen Barbre was at right tackle.
“I’ve been so lucky to play next to a Hall of Fame tackle in J.P. (Jason Peters), probably a future H-of-F in Kelce and now another future Hall of Famer in Lane,” Seumalo said.
“It’s me adapting to him and him adapting to me. I not only try to perform at the highest level that I possibly can, but I also ask myself what can I do for my teammates today to make them better? And what can I say, how can I act, because me and Lane, we want to be dominant on the right side, so we approach the day very similar.
“Every rep is the most important rep of our life, and once that’s over we move on to the next rep.”
An obvious goal for Johnson is a return to the Pro Bowl after a two-year absence. The only Eagles offensive linemen to make four Pro Bowls are two of Johnson’s teammates and friends — Peters made seven and Kelce five.
“Everyone recognizes what type of player he is,” Sirianni said of Johnson. “I just see him confident in himself and playing at a very high level with his confidence and his skill, and he should be confident in himself because he's a heck of a football player.”
