Lane Johnson retires as the greatest Eagle of this generation. The team and its fans should be grateful for what he gave them
For 14 years, the Eagles were awesome with him and mediocre without him at right tackle. But it was his strength and sacrifice through struggle that set him apart.
The greatest and most important Eagles player of the last 30 years left clues like breadcrumbs along the path of his career — clues about the weight he bore in his heart and mind, clues about the emotional and physical pain he overcame just to play professional football, clues that in time became confessions. Here was one:
Lane Johnson sat at his locker one afternoon in the Eagles’ practice facility, straddling a stool, his bare bald head glistening with sweat. This was October 2022, four years ago now. Johnson was in the midst of the 10th of his 14 seasons with the Eagles, one of his best seasons, one of his hardest. First-team All-Pro. A Pro Bowl selection. A concussion. A torn adductor muscle in his groin that he played through in the playoffs and in Super Bowl LVII. Two years removed from ankle surgery. A year removed from missing three games because of his mental-health problems, problems that caused him so much anxiety, anxiety that took control of his body to the point that before games his hands would tremble and he’d throw up blood.
“You’re under pressure,” Johnson said that day. “You’re under the microscope. You’re in a place that, if you talk and say you’re struggling, everyone’s going to look at you like you’re a [coward]. That’s what people were scared of: getting judged.”
Johnson retired from the NFL on Tuesday afternoon, and it was abrupt and surprising only to those who had not been paying attention to his words, his actions, and the circumstances that sometimes conspired to keep him off the field. Not once over his final 10 years with the Eagles did he play a full 16- or 17-game regular season. Yet no one with any sense or any understanding of Johnson’s life would begrudge him those absences — including last Sunday’s, when he told head coach Nick Sirianni before kickoff against the Rams that he couldn’t go, that too much was on his mind, that his parents’ health and his own future were occupying his thoughts and keeping him from concentrating fully on another game.
» READ MORE: Lane Johnson announces retirement after 14 seasons with the Eagles: ‘It’s time to say goodbye to football’
Two first-team and three second-team All-Pro selections, six Pro Bowls, two Super Bowl victories: Johnson should sail into the Pro Football Hall of Fame five years from now. But those achievements only provide the slightest insight into his value to the Eagles once they chose him with the fourth overall pick in the 2013 draft. It is not quite right to say that the effect of drafting Johnson was incalculable, because two figures capture it.
The Eagles were 122-63-1 when he played and 18-30 when he didn’t. When he lined up at right tackle, they won 66% of the time. When someone else, they were no better than a 7-10 team. No matter the quarterback, no matter the head coach, when Johnson was available, the Eagles were awesome, because he was awesome.
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What he lived with and lived through was something else. His willingness to talk about his struggles made the toughest, most technically sound tackle in the NFL a vital voice for understanding and sensitivity toward the unseen issues that an elite athlete, or anyone else, might be facing. One could find some sympathy for him even for the 10-game suspension he served in 2016 for violating the league’s policies on performance-enhancing drugs. This was football, not baseball, after all. This was perhaps the most brutal of sports. The public is more apt to forgive an NFL player for such a transgression given the punishment he puts himself through, and Johnson admitted that the suspension preyed on his self-confidence and self-image.
“They think I’m a ‘roid-head, that I may not be mentally there or something,” he said in 2017. “That’s what I want them to think, so when the time comes and I get on the field, I think they see I’m a different breed of guy. … I think I’ve built it up in my head. I just think that’s a stigma with me. It’ll always be with me.”
It will, but it ought to be kept in the context of his entire career, of his excellence and his openness. Back in October ‘22, he sent out a call to anyone who loves the sport to be mindful of the sacrifice it demands from those who play it.
“There are a lot of former players who are suffering, some who used to play here that I know of,” he said. “I’m not going to give any names, but they’re in pretty damn bad shape. I don’t know, man. You hate to see your old warriors — they haven’t really had a chance to live life. They’ve been playing football their whole life, and now they get out and they’re suffering. They have bad anxiety or depression. It affects their wives. It affects their children. I think there’s a lot of work that can be done in a good way, but they just need to understand the voices of the past players.”
» READ MORE: From 2022: Lane Johnson will be a warrior again vs. the 49ers. Don’t forget the price he’s paying.
He is one of those past players now. Maybe he doesn’t have to suffer so much anymore. Maybe Lane Johnson can reflect on a career for which he deserves every honor, both for how he competed and for what he did just to allow himself to compete. The Eagles and their fans should be grateful and never let him forget they are. None of it was easy. All of it came with a heavy cost. The hope, for his sake, has to be that he decides it was worth it.
