Offensive tackles are supposed to be big, strong, and durable. At 6’6″ and over 300 pounds, Lane Johnson checks every one of those boxes and has been a cornerstone for the Philadelphia Eagles for more than a decade. But that only covers the physical side. The mental side works differently. It does not care about size or strength. With talent, expectations, and visibility comes pressure, and in Johnson’s case, that has meant dealing with performance anxiety for years.

“I just had so much performance anxiety with my time in the league,” Johnson said on Fitz & Whit. “When you’re drafted that high, there’s so much expectation, and there’s so much put on you. And if you’re not that or you don’t meet that standard, you’re labeled this.”

For Johnson, that battle did not begin in the NFL. It started back in his senior year of high school, when he put immense pressure on himself to earn a college scholarship.

He later spent time at Kilgore College in 2008 before transferring to Oklahoma, where he played from 2009 to 2012. But even then, the mental strain never really went away. It only shifted.

Once the Eagles selected him with the fourth overall pick in the 2013 NFL Draft, that pressure took on a different form. Johnson admitted that before games, he would throw up or dry heave as a way of coping with the anxiety. He turned to therapy and medication to manage it, but that path came with its own complications.

In 2014 and 2016, Johnson was suspended for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances. Behind the scenes, though, he was still dealing with deeper mental health challenges. And then came another turning point in the early 2020s when injuries began to pile up.

“I think a lot of my anxiety that I had in 2021 was due to my ankle injury and coming back and I wasn’t able to like really push off my right leg. And I was like, ‘I don’t want to go on and have a career being a shell of my former self.’ And my worst fear was just not being enough, letting my team down. I put so much of my time and energy trying to meet a certain standard and it was like ‘Hey man, I’d rather die that not meet that standard.'”

That context makes it more striking. By that point, Johnson was already a Super Bowl champion and a three-time Pro Bowler. From the outside, everything looked stable. Internally, it was the opposite.

The 2020 season only added to it. The Eagles finished 4-11-1, leading to the firing of their Super Bowl-winning head coach. At the same time, Johnson struggled to stay on the field due to a lingering ankle issue that had been bothering him for years.

He eventually shut things down in late November and underwent another surgery.

Physically, the recovery worked. He returned to play 13 games in 2021. Mentally, though, things were still unsettled. Johnson stepped away for three games that season to deal with depression, opening up publicly about it during a conversation with Jay Glazer on FOX NFL Sunday.

“The first game against Atlanta, I told my mom … ‘Something’s really, really wrong with me. I don’t know exactly what it is.’ I said, ‘I’m miserable. I know my mind isn’t right. I know my body isn’t right.’ So I left [the Eagles]. I went back home. I didn’t have any communication with the Eagles,” he told Glazer.

While dealing with mental health struggles for years, Johnson chose to keep it hidden from everyone. The reason, as he later admitted, was simple. He felt “ashamed,” as he explained to Glazer in 2021:

“In this league, the NFL, where it’s a gladiator-type sport, it’s something that’s not often talked about but is often felt throughout the league.”

Now at 35, Johnson’s career résumé speaks for itself. Two Super Bowl titles, multiple All-Pro selections, and six Pro Bowls. But behind all of that is a story that is far more layered.

Because long before the accolades and even before the NFL, Johnson was already fighting a battle that had nothing to do with the opponent in front of him. It was about meeting his own standard and not letting his team down.

That said, Johnson is now expected to enter his 14th season. But considering he missed time in the 2025 season due to injury, the Eagles are expected to soon find his heir ahead of the 2026 season.

The Eagles are predicted to draft Lane Johnson’s heir

Lane Johnson managed to play in just 10 games during the 2025 season, largely due to multiple injuries. Think of a singer in Week 3, then an ankle injury in Week 1o, and then a Lisfranc injury to his left foot in Week 11.

With injuries piling up, there was some speculation that the 35-year-old could consider retirement. That, however, does not seem to be the case. Johnson is returning for the 2026 season. Still, the Eagles are aware of where things stand in the bigger picture.

He is approaching the later stage of his career, and the franchise will eventually need a long-term answer at right tackle. And in a recent mock draft, ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. projected the Eagles to address that need with the No. 23 pick by selecting Arizona State offensive tackle Max Iheanachor.

“No. 23. Philadelphia Eagles,” Kiper wrote, “Max Iheanachor, OT, Arizona State. Iheanachor had 31 starts at Arizona State, but he didn’t play much football before that, picking up the sport late. He’ll need time to reach his potential in the NFL. But what better way to develop than learning behind an elite right tackle in Lane Johnson?”

Whether Philadelphia actually goes in that direction is still uncertain. But the idea itself is not hard to understand. At some point, the Eagles will have to plan for life after Johnson.

And when that moment comes, finding his replacement through the draft, whether it is Iheanachor or someone else, feels less like an option and more like an eventual necessity.