Lane Johnson had another dominant season with the Eagles, and he’s not retiring ‘win or lose’ after the Super Bowl
Johnson has had one of the best seasons of his 12-year NFL career. On Saturday, he told reporters he wants to return for more.

A piece of paper was taped on the wall next to Lane Johnson’s locker stall at the NovaCare Complex on the afternoon of Jan. 10. On it was a chart labeled ALL PRO COMPARISON. It was a stat comparison between the Eagles’ right tackle and Detroit’s, Penei Sewell.
Earlier that day, Sewell was named first-team All-Pro while Johnson was named to the second team for the second consecutive season.
NFL players have an interesting relationship with Pro Football Focus and other advanced metrics. They will tout them when they want to use them to prove a point. They will doubt them when they do not agree with the numbers or the grades. This chart, though, showed the fancy numbers heavily favoring Johnson. The Associated Press All-Pro teams are voted on by a 50-person panel of media members who regularly cover the league.
The chart was easily seen in the locker room when it opened to Eagles reporters on the afternoon the teams were announced.
It read, in part:
Sacks allowed: Johnson 0, Sewell 1
QB hits allowed: Johnson 1, Sewell 5
QB hurries allowed: Johnson 9, Sewell 22
Pressures allowed: Johnson 10, Sewell 28
Then came the stat that separates Johnson from many: island rate, which refers to snaps taken without help from a guard or a player in the backfield. Johnson was on an island 75% of the time during the regular season, the highest rate in the NFL. Sewell was 58th, at 55%.
By any measure, Johnson had one of the best seasons of his 12-year NFL career and one that could make a player change the way he views his future. Before the season started, Johnson, who turns 35 in May, said he probably had two or three years left in him. Has anything changed?
“I’m definitely not retiring after this game, win or lose,” Johnson said Saturday. “I’m definitely playing next year. That’s really how you take it, I guess, when you get up in age. You take it one year at a time. I feel a lot better than I have in the past couple years. I feel really good. For being this late in the year, it’s usually not like that.”
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Johnson, a five-time All-Pro including first-team recognition for 2017 and 2022, emerged this season as a more vocal presence publicly, spending more time at his locker stall available to media than he had in the past. Part of that was to fill the void of Jason Kelce’s departure, but part of it was that Johnson was annoyed by a July 2023 ESPN article that ranked the top 10 offensive tackles in football. It surveyed executives, coaches, scouts, and players around the league and featured anonymous quotes.
Johnson was ranked fourth. It wasn’t that part that Johnson took umbrage with. It was this: “He gets a lot of credit for being noisy and playing on a good team,” one executive told ESPN.
So Johnson made himself less available last season. Less noisy.
“That article [ticked] me off,” he said. “That’s why I did that.”
Johnson, who has been a warrior through countless injuries with the Eagles, chose to let his play speak, he said, but this year, he has been more available to reporters and his teammates.
“Voice and saying stuff here is one thing, but I think it’s your actions and what you do every day when the cameras aren’t here,” he said. “We spend a lot of time in here. When I try to lead, I do a lot of stuff one-on-one. That’s kind of how I’ve always been.”
It was Jason Peters’ approachable nature Johnson said he benefited from when he first arrived in Philadelphia. He’s tried to be the same type of person for the younger Eagles.
“I’m someone that’s definitely here to help,” Johnson said. “I’m not here to demean or to diminish confidence but to build confidence.”
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The message this week, as the Eagles prepared for their Super Bowl trip to New Orleans: “We didn’t finish what we started a couple of years ago, but we have a big chance to go play well and do something special.”
Next Sunday isn’t being viewed as a revenge game, Johnson said. “It’s more of a ‘We need to play our football game, and we need to play it well,’” he said.
He’s a big part of that. Now, next season, and maybe until the numbers on the chart aren’t so indicative of a player who is way too good to consider retiring.
Graham takes the next step
Brandon Graham’s return to the Eagles for the Super Bowl took another step Saturday during the team’s final practice before departing for New Orleans.
Graham participated in team drills for the first time this week, he said, and will do “some more” when the Eagles are next on the field in Louisiana.
“I’m feeling good,” Graham said. “Just excited that I’m at least suiting up, and we’ll see how it goes.”
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Graham broke down the team huddle after practice, saying, “Let’s run through this finish line, that’s all.”
He said this week that he hadn’t made any decisions about his long-term future. This year was supposed to be his farewell tour, but Graham said he wanted to focus on returning for the Super Bowl and would evaluate his future after. If Graham retires, Johnson would become the longest-tenured Eagle.
“He talked about it before the NFC championship that if we won, he was going to have a chance to play,” Johnson said. “I know he’s excited, and everybody is excited for him. I think everybody sees what type of player BG has been and a role model and somebody that’s consistently bounced back from adversity.”