Eagles avoid major injury to All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson

Eagles avoid major injury to All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

There’s some good news in the wake of the Eagles’ 20-14 loss to the Jets on Sunday afternoon.

At least the Birds avoided a major injury to All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson, NBC Sports Philadelphia’s John Clark reported.

We’ll see if Johnson will be able to make it back for Sunday Night Football against the Dolphins in Week 7, but at least the Eagles won’t have to go for long without one of their best players.

Johnson, 33, suffered the ankle injury at MetLife Stadium early in the first half and was forced out of the game after just nine snaps. He was replaced by veteran Jack Driscoll, who had a rough outing. Driscoll gave up a sack and a team-high eight pressures, according to ProFootballFocus.

“You have to adjust your game plan based off what’s going on in the game,” Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni said. “Again, I’ll look at the tape, see how I felt like Jack played, but I know we’ve won a lot of games here with him. Obviously, any time you lose a player like Lane, Lane’s one of the best players in the NFL, you’re going to obviously miss that. But I’ll see what I think with the tape.”

Johnson has been one of the best tackles in the NFL for many seasons and is coming off a fantastic 2022 season when he was named an All-Pro and Pro Bowler. Johnson notably hasn’t allowed a sack since the 2020 season.

After a bit of a rough season opener in New England, Johnson had been fantastic the last month. It’s no secret just how important Johnson is to the Eagles’ success.

Before Sunday’s game, here were the Eagles records with and without Johnson dating back to the 2016 season:

With Johnson: 66-30-1
Without Johnson: 10-22

Technically, since Johnson started the game on Sunday, it’ll go down as a loss in the “with Johnson” category but it was clear that the Eagles missed him. The Eagles don’t often have to help Johnson with chips or a tight end on that side; they leave him on an island and he dominates. When they try to get by with that approach without him, it doesn’t work nearly as well.

The Eagles won’t have to release an injury report until Wednesday of this week. They will host the Dolphins on Sunday night at the Linc.

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