I haven’t written since the draft and have taken a break, but I knew this article was coming. It’s been written in my head for a long time and I wasn’t looking forward to finishing it for a few reasons.
I’ve said it before – in my book, Lane Johnson is the greatest Eagle ever. So when Lane announced his retirement, this was the one thing I knew I wanted to come back and write.
Partly to explain why I think he’s the greatest Eagle. But mostly just to say thanks.
The greatest Eagle candidates
There are so many good choices for greatest Eagle.
Reggie White is probably the most dominant player to ever wear an Eagles uniform. 124 sacks in 121 games in Philly is ridiculous and his clips of throwing one grown, professional athlete into another should just not be real. The only potential knock on Reggie is that we didn’t get his whole career.
Brian Dawkins was the soul of the Eagles, probably the most beloved, and probably the player who best represented what fans want an Eagle to be.
Randall Cunningham was different. My favorite Eagle when I was a kid, he made the Eagles matter nationally and forever changed the quarterback position.
Eric Allen is my friend and partner David’s guy, and probably the biggest dark horse on the list. Playing my favorite position (which is what inspired the name Philly Cover Corner), Allen was a rare taste of a shutdown corner for Philly.
And then there’s Jason Kelce.
I’ve called Kelce the conscience of Philly for years. It wasn’t just the speech after the Super Bowl or the personality. It was that he said what needed to be said.
When Philadelphia was going through the Ben Simmons mess, Kelce’s advice was basically: “Just play better, man. The city will love you.” When people talked about tanking (note to everybody already writing about the Eagles “selling” or tanking this season…), Kelce talked about how nothing should take precedence over trying to win the football game and the impact tanking has on culture. And after another officiating controversy, his attitude was essentially that losers complain about calls. If it wasn’t called, move on.
That’s Philly to me. No excuses. Be accountable. Play better.
And Kelce lived it, while also becoming a six-time first-team All-Pro and one of the greatest centers ever.
So I get any of those answers.
Mine is Lane.
Why Lane?
I care about how good you were relative to everybody else at your position. I care about how long you did it. I care about how you impacted the game in a unique way. And yes, winning.
Lane has all of it.
Fourteen seasons, all with the Eagles. Six Pro Bowls. Five AP All-Pro selections. Three NFC championships and two Super Bowl wins. Making the best in the game look human.
But the thing that always stood out to me with Lane was much simpler.
He was on an island his entire career. Put the other team’s best pass rusher over there and Lane’s got him.
PFF tracks “Island Rate,” or how often an OT is truly one-on-one in pass protection without help.
Lane’s Island Rate in 2025 was 70.2%, highest in the NFL. And on those reps he won 95.1% of the time. Also best in the NFL.
We expected it and took it for granted because we saw it year after year, but those stats are insane. Insane. And he wasn’t just a pass blocker.
In 2023, Lane led all NFL tackles in ESPN’s run block win rate at 82%, while also posting a 92% pass block win rate. A year later, at 34 years old, he was tied for fourth among tackles in both: 94% in pass block win rate and 80% in run block win rate.
Fourteen years in and he was still one of the best tackles in football.
He was still Lane.
He’s the standard
Every draft season I do something that is probably a bad idea. I go back and watch Lane’s Oklahoma college film. If you haven’t, you should – he looks different.
I started doing it as a benchmark before watching the new tackle class. I wanted to remind myself what an elite tackle prospect actually looks like.
The problem is it ruins the rest of the class for me – I’m sitting there thinking, yeah, but he’s not Lane, and putting most top prospects on day two.
It’s completely unfair. I know that. But that’s how good Lane was in college. He looked different and it’s rare you see a prospect coming out that is even close to how Lane looked.
He really has been the standard for me.
And Lane gave us everything
This matters in the Reggie comparison especially. You could say Reggie was the better or more dominant football player. I’m not sure I’d even argue against that.
But Lane was an Eagle his entire career.
Different coaches, quarterbacks, running backs and offenses. A lot of really good teams and some bad ones. Week in and week out for fourteen years, an amazingly boring island of dominance at right tackle against the best athletes in the world.
And when the games got biggest, Lane was Lane.
In his first Super Bowl, Lane had 44 pass-blocking snaps and didn’t allow a single pressure.
Five years later, back in the Super Bowl, he had 42 pass-blocking snaps. Again, zero pressures.
That’s 86 pass-blocking snaps in his first two Super Bowls without allowing one pressure. Not one.
Then he went back to the Super Bowl at 34 years old. He was the highest-graded offensive lineman in the game, with an 83.2 grade.
Three Super Bowls. 115 pass-blocking snaps. Two pressures.
The other side of the island
There’s another part of Lane that matters to me, especially now.
On the field, Lane spent his career on an island, the Eagles trusting him to handle it. Off the field, one of the most important messages Lane came back with was almost the opposite.
You are not alone.
In 2021, Lane stepped away from football because of anxiety and depression. He later talked about how long he had hidden it, including from people close to him.
That couldn’t have been easy. He admitted he wasn’t okay. He got help. And then he talked about it.
Jason Kelce got emotional talking about Lane later that season and what his openness might mean to other people. “Think about the amount of people that he’s given hope to,” Kelce said.
I love that.
We all either go through something similar or have somebody close that does. We may not know it, but they are there. Life is hard. Most of us eventually run into something we can’t just work harder at and fix. Sometimes pushing through is the answer. Sometimes it isn’t.
I understand that better today than I did a few years ago.
My situation isn’t Lane’s. I’ve had some things I’ve been working through including some tough places, which is why I have been away from writing this year.
But I appreciate what Lane did.
There are people who saw one of the toughest guys in the NFL say he needed help and maybe felt a little better about saying the same thing themselves.
People he’ll never meet or know. People he helped without ever knowing he helped them.
My view on life is simply two things: enjoy it because you only get one of them and to somehow leave a meaningful impact beyond yourself. Lane has clearly left a massive impact.
Thanks, 65
I started PhillyCoverCorner during Covid thanks to my good friend David Neisz who encouraged me – us – to start writing. He thought we could write differently than others and bring some positivity, some thoughtful analytics, and some fun to the writing by doing what we wanted to do.
I didn’t really expect what came with writing here.
I actually got people reading things. Some really nice comments. I met people who became friends, some I have met in the real world and many I never will but I still value greatly. I’m really thankful for all of that.
I haven’t been able to write this year and always said I would write only what I wanted, but knew when Lane retired I needed to drop this one. I just thought I would have a few more months to do it.
For fourteen years, we basically didn’t have to worry about the right side of the Eagles’ offensive line.
I’ve written in several times before so this isn’t just a reaction to his retirement announcement: Lane Johnson is the greatest Eagle I’ve ever watched. And it’s not just because of what he did on the field.
So, from me, thank you, Lane Johnson.
Thank you from Philly.
And thank you from everyone you helped and didn’t even know it.
As always, Go Birds.