Eagles stay the course and get their man in Lane Johnson

Nobody can say with any certainty whether Lane Johnson will be the next Tra Thomas or the next Danny Watkins. Most likely, he will land somewhere in the vast region between those two first-round extremes.

Of the little we can be sure about in the hours after a draft, there were a few things to like.

The Eagles had the No. 4 pick. They identified four players they believed were worthy of that slot. When their turn came, they took one.

"It's an exciting thing when you can target people and get what you're looking for," coach Chip Kelly said.

No trading down. No messing around. No outsmarting themselves by trying to look smarter than everyone else.

For the Eagles to become an elite team again, they are going to need some elite players. The fourth pick of the draft is a perfect opportunity to acquire one.

In Johnson, the Eagles didn't get the most accomplished offensive tackle available. That was Luke Joeckel, who went to Jacksonville second. They didn't get the scouting combine phenom. That was Eric Fisher from Central Michigan, who was taken first overall by Andy Reid in Kansas City.

So who did they get?

"He is raw," Kelly said. "But we see raw as a positive. His ceiling is the highest."

Johnson said he went to the combine to prove he was "a football player," not just an athletic big man. His history supports that. This is a kid who played quarterback and safety at his Texas high school and went to a junior college as a QB.

When he got to Oklahoma, he moved to tight end, then to defensive end. When the Sooners had some injuries along their offensive line, coach Bob Stoops asked Johnson to change positions yet again. He played right tackle as a junior and left tackle as a senior.

You don't do all of that if you don't really love playing football. And that's no small thing.

"He lives and dies football," Kelly said.

It's hard not to compare and contrast this pick with the last offensive lineman the Eagles selected in the first round. That was Watkins, another relatively inexperienced guy from a Big 12 school (Baylor).

Watkins was the classic too-smart-by-half Eagles pick - a Canadian firefighter who was already 26 before he set foot on an NFL field. He has never appeared to be a guy who truly loves playing football, which shows up in a million little ways.

If Watkins has a chance to salvage his career at this point, it narrowed significantly. Johnson will almost surely be the starting right tackle. That means Todd Herremans will move from tackle back to right guard. Watkins would then move on toward the next step in his life's journey.

That is one of the advantages of having a new head coach. Watkins wasn't Kelly's pick. He was Reid's, which is why it took a mysterious ankle injury to knock Watkins out of the starting lineup last season. Getting his butt kicked every week didn't do it.

Kelly said he'll evaluate his own players, including his first draft pick, through that same clear lens.

"He'll determine when he gets on the field," Kelly said. "I've said that whenever I've coached: 'We don't set the depth chart, you do.' We don't run a dictatorship, we don't run a democracy, we run a meritocracy."

That is easier to say than to do. It gets harder as you assume responsibility for your roster. By his final years, Reid sometimes seemed to make lineup decisions just to prove he'd been right about a player.

The best way for Kelly to avoid that pitfall, of course, is to get good players. If Johnson is a cornerstone piece of an exciting offense, no one will wonder if he's playing only because the coach doesn't want to admit a mistake.

Two years ago, Reid and GM Howie Roseman were crowing about Watkins and his upside. He was, they swore, a dynamic guard who could step right in and start in the NFL.

They're all potential Pro Bowlers on the night of the first round.

So don't even try to judge whether the Eagles made the best possible pick. Just be satisfied they made it in the right way, for the right reasons.

It's a start.