Over the weekend, Lane Johnson announced that this will probably be his last season with the Eagles before retiring. Even though we all knew this was coming either this season or next, it still hit like a Lane Johnson pancake block. What does this mean? Here are the answers to all of your questions…
Who replaces LJ at RT?
As much as it’s easy to say that no one can replace Lane, someone has to. The last two years, the Eagles have been taking late round and undrafted flyers on enormous, athletic offensive linemen in hopes that one of them pops. Cameron Williams, Myles Hinton, Hollin Pierce, the jury is still out on if any of them can become a pro in this league.
This past year though, the Eagles went a little higher with Markel Bell with a 3rd round pick. The OT out of UM is 6’9″ and 346 pounds. Can he play? The early reports out of camp and even from Lane himself is that he absolutely can. He has already been receiving first team reps in Lane’s absence and looks like he will start the season as the swing tackle. Most important for him will be to stay healthy and learn as much as possible because he looks like the first option.
That’s a ton of pressure for a rookie. It also isn’t reasonable to think a 3rd round pick can replace an All-Timer after just a week of practice. We can all be optimistic about Bell’s chances, but the real seal of approval won’t come until the 2027 NFL Draft. If they draft a polished tackle in the first round, then obviously they don’t feel Bell is ready. With the extra 2028 Patriots 1st round pick in their back pocket, the Eagles have plenty of ammo to move up and get who they want. Of course, if Bell is the guy, then that leaves the first round open to the best player available.
How does his retirement affect the salary cap?
Johnson signed a 1 year extension last offseason that essentially just guaranteed his money for 2026 while making it easier for the Eagles to navigate his retirement. For salary cap purposes, retirement is treated the same as though the player was released. This is why the proper documents are not filed until after June 1, the day a salary cap can be bifurcated over 2 seasons for cap purposes. Johnson’s 2027 option would not kick in until after June 1, so there is no worry of that messing with the process.
His current 2027 cap number right now is $21.1m. That includes the final prorated year of his signing bonus and other prorated years from previous options. If he retires after June 1 as expected, his 2027 cap number drops to $12.27m, giving the Eagles about $9m extra to spend. Because it is a June 1 transaction though, there is still 2028 to think about. Currently, LJ is on the books for a $17.5m cap hit in 2028. However, this will drop to $13.25m with the move.
Does he make it into the Hall of Fame?
Left Tackles get all the love, but Lane Johnson is the exception. Throughout his career, Lane has not only been considered easily the best RT in the NFL but has regularly received recognition as one of the best tackles regardless of which side he plays on. That has resulted in 6 Pro Bowls and 5 All-Pro Teams. Those numbers are deceiving though. Over the last 9 seasons, the only times he wasn’t given recognition was due to injury, playing only 7 games in 2020 and 10 games in 2025.
While it’s not easy to make a Super Bowl, let alone win one, Lane Johnson has been to three and has two rings on his hand. That’s a very exclusive club. No one in the recent history of Hall of Famers at the position comes close.
It is not easy to get into the NFL Hall of Fame and much harder than any of the other 3. There are simply too many positions and not enough slots every year. Over the last 25 years, do you know how many non-senior era Tackles have been enshrined? Just 7: Gary Zimmerman (2008), Willie Roaf (2012), Jonathan Ogden (2013), Walter Jones (2014), Orlando Pace (2016), Tony Boselli (2022), and Joe Thomas (2023). Lane stacks up fairly well in this company. Roaf, Ogden, and Thomas outpace him pretty well in terms of accolades, but Lane fits in nicely with the other 4 and has more rings than anyone on the list.
The one glaring red flag on his resume is the 2014 suspension for PEDs. He only missed 4 games and it was early in his career, but we’ll have to see how much of a scarlet letter this is for the committee. On the bright side, all of his career success came after the suspension, not before it, and he was never busted again. Hopefully this just means he has to wait a few years rather than being disqualified forever.
Is Lane the most important Eagle since Brian Dawkins?
I chose Dawkins as the cutoff because he is every fan of a certain age’s Eagles hero. There’s still a case to be made for Lane over Weapon X, but why argue such things? Dawkins final season in midnight green was 2008. So, who is topping the Lane Train?
Jason Kelce? Six 1st Team All-Pros is absurd. Kelce himself will be in the Hall of Fame soon enough. Though he made it his own, the Center position is simply down a notch on the importance spectrum from tackle.
Fletcher Cox? As the 2nd best DT in football for most of his career, Cox could be on his way to Canton as well. He was the most important player on a dominant defense for a decade.
Brandon Graham? BG is the only other guy on this list with 2 rings. He was the heart and soul of the entire team for basically 15 years and made maybe the biggest play in team history when he strip sacked Tom Brady in Super Bowl 52.
Johnson has the accolades and the rings, but he also has the best statistic. When Lane plays, the Eagles are 110-57-1 with a .658 win percentage. When he doesn’t, they are 18-27, a .400 win percentage. That’s the difference between going 11-6 and 7-10 every year. He is literally worth a playoff spot by himself.
NOTE: There are no wrong answers here. I love these guys (also do not read this as anything against Jalen Hurts)
Remember how it started?
I could show love all day to Lane Johnson, but I would be remiss (and you know how much I hate being remiss) if I didn’t go back to Draft Day in 2013 when the Eagles were picking 4th after an awful season. The three top prospects that season were all offensive tackles. Eric Fisher went 1st to Kansas City and Luke Joeckel went 2nd to Jacksonville. The presumptive logic was that Oakland would pick Johnson next at #3 and then Chip Kelly and the Eagles would select his boy from Oregon, Dion Jordan, at #4. Thankfully, the Miami Dolphins saved Chip from himself by swinging a trade for #3 and taking Jordan. The Eagles happily took Johnson.
Jordan was a bust and was in and out of the NFL with substance abuse issues. Fisher played 9 years as a solid but never elite tackle. Joekel was out of the NFL by 2018. For the most part, most of the first half of the 1st Round that year ended up disappointing. Not Lane though. We were very lucky.
Salary Cap Calculator: Overthecap.com
Photo: Governor Tom Wolf from Harrisburg, PA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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