Eagles' Longest-Tenured Player: 'Football Junkie' With 'Fountain Of Knowledge'

A recent practice had ended for the day, and as Lane Johnson and Moro Ojomo were sauntering off the field, the two Eagles stopped and had a conversation. It was more student-pupil dialogue.

Johnson is 35 and entering his 13th NFL season. Ojomo will turn 24 on Aug. 15 and gearing up for his third season. That tells you all you need to know about who the teacher was and who was the student.

“Lane is a football junkie, and when you have a guy like that, you ask him tons of things,” said Ojomo.

And that’s what defensive lineman was doing. He explained that he made a pass rush move on Johnson that worked the day before, but on this day, the veteran right tackle changed the way he approached it and shut Ojomo down on the same move.

“We were just kind of messing around with that (after practice), and I was like, ‘Oh, wow,’” said Ojomo.

Johnson has been an ‘oh-wow’ player for the past dozen years, with no signs of slowing down. He is the longest tenured Eagles player now, taking that mantle from Brandon Graham when he retired in the offseason. Graham had taken it last year after Jason Kelce retired.

The baton will be passed again at some point. Until then, Johnson keeps wowing.

“Lane is just a fountain of knowledge,” said Eagles newcomer, defensive end Ogbo Okoronkwo. “After every rush, he remembers every rush, and he’ll come to me after practice and he’ll say, ‘I like how you did this’ or, ‘You coulda done this better, or try to press this a little more before you do this.’

“He’s a guy who doesn’t hold anything in. He’s letting everybody know he’s trying to get everybody better because he knows that’s how a team wins, when everybody is playing his best.”

Another newcomer, swing tackle Kendall Lamm, who came over in the offseason from Miami and is entering his 11th NFL season, heard a lot about Lane Johnson from some of Lamm’s former teammates.

“I’ve heard about Lane my entire life,” said Lamm. “I played with Duane Brown early on. I played with T-sted (Terron Armstead) in Miami. Those are two people who’ve known him dearly, so for me to finally get around him, it’s really cool.

“It’s crazy because a lot of the guys that are elite, elite, elite are good people, too, and he falls in that. It’s nice to be able to have a conversation with him, pick his brain, and he’s always willing to share the knowledge, which is dope.”