Best Ever? Eagles' Lane Johnson Enters The Conversation

“Based on last year’s film this is pretty undeniable. We should start having the conversation about Lane being the best RT of all time sooner rather than later,” Thorn wrote earlier this month on the X.com platform.

Thorn also noted his post-merger Mount Rushmore of right tackles, which included “Big Bad Jackie” Slater, who starred for nearly two decades for the Los Angeles/St. Louis Rams in a career that ranged from 1976 to 1995, long-time Cincinnati RT Willie Anderson, who bridged the 1990s and 2000s, 1970s stalwart Ron Yary, a seven-time All-Pro in Minnesota who arrived as the No. 1 overall pick out of Southern California in 1968, as well as Johnson.

These conversations that span generations tend to be exercises in futility and somewhat irrelevant, especially in a sport like professional football, which has changed so much over the years.

What Yary did at the height of his career 50 years ago doesn’t translate to today’s NFL, and similarly, Johnson’s impact today can’t just be put in the time machine and plopped right into a far more old-school approach.

What can’t be dismissed is that Johnson is one of the best RTs of his generation, and if historians want to bring your name up with the best of other eras, you’re really good.

And the best news with Johnson for Eagles’ fans is that the veteran feels better than ever at age 35.

“I’m 35 and I feel like I’m better than when I was 29, 30,” Johnson said earlier this month. “I had the [ankle] surgeries, so the toughest was the games I missed in 2021. You can clearly see on film I was very hindered with my left foot. Now, I feel like I’m getting close to maybe my peak. As weird as it is to say, that’s truly how I feel.”

Fit has also meant everything to Johnson, who landed with an organization that began to emphasize the offensive line heavily when Andy Reid arrived in 1999. Johnson came after Reid but just as Jeff Stoutland took over as the offensive line coach.

“He’s a remarkable person,” Johnson said when discussing Stoutland. “He’s a great teacher, at the end of the day. I know he’s a football coach, but he’s just a great teacher, with football things and outside football. 

“I think he has a brilliant mind and coaching philosophy. I feel he knows how to motivate different personalities and he’s really good at that. And his intensity and passion for the game is what makes him who he is.”

It could have gone differently.

“I thought about what would have happened if I went to Miami. Kansas City [with Reid] wouldn’t have been bad. Jacksonville,” Johnson pondered. “I actually got to talk to coach [Eugene] Chung [at minicamp], he was in the building. He was actually there when Kansas City was interviewing me so he got to see me from day one to now. Very fortunate to land here.”

Chung, currently assisting DeSean Jackson at Delaware State, was with the Chiefs from 2013-2015 before arriving in Philadelphia as Stoutland’s assistant OL coach for four seasons.

“I think the passion of the city and the intensity and how they focus so much on sport, it allows that whatever pressure they put on you, it allows you to be the best player you can be. It’s something you really appreciate over time," Johnson said.