Inside story of the Eagles drafting franchise pillar Lane Johnson: ‘I’m gonna go top 5’
Daniel Johnston
Published Apr 06, 2026
The person least surprised was Johnson himself. Johnson dined with Sarnoff at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in downtown Indianapolis on the eve of his athletic testing at the scouting combine. He looked at his agent and called his shot.
“I’m going to rip this f—ing combine to such a level that these motherf—ers have never seen anything like it,” Johnson said, according to Sarnoff. “And when it’s all said and done, I’m gonna go top five.”
Johnson’s performance during his Senior Bowl week is legendary enough that he was named this year to the inaugural class of the Senior Bowl’s Hall of Fame.
“I still have the Most Outstanding Lineman award on my mantel and think about what a week it was in Mobile,” Johnson said in a statement released by the Senior Bowl. “It truly has come full circle now. The Senior Bowl is where I started to rise up draft boards to eventually becoming the No. 4 overall pick.”
Aside from beginning Johnson’s journey to Philadelphia, it was also the first full week in the partnership between Roseman and new head coach Chip Kelly. Roseman’s scouting staff caught up with Kelly’s new hires on their early reads of the draft class as everyone prepared the roster to transition to Kelly’s up-tempo, no-huddle offense and a 3-4 defensive alignment. Though public perception did not see Johnson as a first-round pick, the Eagles, apparently, were early admirers.
“This was a guy who all of us, our scouts, had first-round grades on,” Roseman said. “At that time, we hadn’t really drafted that high since I had been in the NFL. So I think your hope is that you can find transformational players at transformational positions. Certainly, offensive tackle is one of them.”
Still, Johnson was no one’s headliner heading into the week. The event’s preview on The New York Times website listed Central Michigan tackle Eric Fisher as “the class of the group.” Johnson’s name wasn’t mentioned. By the end of the week, consensus caught up to the Eagles’ initial grade. He would be a first-round pick.
In most draft cycles, the teams in the top five build their plans around when the top quarterbacks go off the board. The top passer at one point in the draft process was Geno Smith, and an Eagles contingent traveled to Morgantown, W.Va., to evaluate Smith. Notably, the traveling party included Jeffrey Lurie — the first time the owner had gone on such a trip since the team drafted Donovan McNabb in 1999.
“It’s a common thing when it’s an important decision,” Lurie said in March 2013. “We haven’t had a very high draft pick in … 14 years. It’s true of anyone we look at, we want all the information we can if we stay at No. 4 there.”
The player the Eagles were most often linked to in the pre-draft process was Dion Jordan, who excelled for Kelly at Oregon and was seen as a possible linchpin to the defense’s scheme change.
By the time the league converged in Indianapolis, Johnson had risen to the status of likely first-rounder.
True to his steakhouse promise, he ripped the athletic testing. At 6-foot-6, 303 pounds, with the frame of someone who looked like a former tight end, Johnson posted a 99th-percentile 40-yard dash, a 98th-percentile 10-yard split, a 98th-percentile broad jump, a 96th-percentile vertical jump and a 94th-percentile three-cone drill.
“He was just off the charts,” Kelly told The Athletic. “He just kind of jumped out at you from an athletic standpoint. And I think (offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland) was excited because he was new to the position.”
All of a sudden, top tackles Luke Joeckel and Fisher had company among the best prospects in the draft.
“You have a 6-6-plus, 310-pound guy that runs a 4.7 40, that’s faster than Anquan Boldin did. He’s jumped 34 inches, that’s the same as A.J. Green. He broad jumps 9-foot-10, the same as Stevan Ridley. So you have a 300-pounder who is putting up numbers at the combine like a skill position player,” then-NFL Network analyst Mike Mayock said in a conference call before the draft. “And everybody around the league and around the country now is starting to realize, wait a minute, we have this unbelievably freakish athlete who has only played a year and a half at left tackle, and every game you put on gets a little better. And how good could he get? That’s what’s fueling all this. Fisher might be safer and Joeckel might be the safest. But this kid’s ceiling is unlimited, and you might have a perennial All-Pro for 10 years, and I think that’s what’s happening.”
Johnson spent the month before the draft crisscrossing the country meeting with coaches and evaluators. Enough teams were interested that he quickly grew tired of squeezing into seat 15A on regional flights. After a full day of meeting in Jacksonville with the Jaguars, who owned the No. 2 pick, Johnson awaited a scheduled flight to Newark, N.J., for a meeting with the New York Jets, who were slated to pick ninth. Delayed several hours, Johnson called Sarnoff.
“Ken, you just call those motherf—ing Jets and tell them I’m not gonna be there at pick 9 anyway!” Sarnoff remembers Johnson spouting.
The Eagles’ interest, meanwhile, was steady. Johnson won his biggest cheerleader in the building on April 5, 2013, when Stoutland flew to Johnson’s hometown of Groveton, Texas, for a private workout.
“I remember that very well,” Stoutland told The Athletic in a 2019 interview. “I went there, I did an interview in the classroom, spent a little over an hour in there. Then we went on the field, they had all the equipment for me. I asked for certain things. It was kind of a hot day down there. I took Lane through my workout that I take ’em all through. There were two other players in that draft class who were at that level, and everyone was trying to figure out who’s who. And I remember doing that workout and coming back, and Lurie asked me point-blank. And all I could tell him was, ‘Wow.’ And I don’t use that word very often. He was unbelievably quick but long and just the foot quickness and the flexibility. I was in awe.”
To hear others in the building tell it, Stoutland is underselling his enthusiasm. By now, Philadelphia has become accustomed to the idiosyncrasies of perhaps the NFL’s best offensive line coach. Back then, it was his first year in the pros after 29 years as a college coach.
“It was the first time I got my Stout video clips going,” Roseman said. “I remember him sending these video clips and going like, ‘This guy is so unusual, freak show. Nothing he can’t do.’ There were like 20 clips on my phone. I remember going like, ‘Oh, my God, our offensive line coach is psycho. He’s out of control.’ Like, I got like 20 videos. … I can’t even go through it! But it was because of how unique it was.”
GO DEEPER
What fuels Eagles right tackle Lane Johnson? His hunger for more — literally
Stoutland began the workout by testing Johnson’s football knowledge on the whiteboard, breaking things up with questions about his personal life, then getting back to football before the on-field portion. What Stoutland saw was a unique athlete. Before he ever had a chance to coach Jason Peters (tight end in college), Jason Kelce (originally a walk-on linebacker) or Jordan Mailata (rugby player), Stoutland knew he preferred traits over experience.
“He was really fired up about him,” Kelly remembered. “I know when he came back — and Stout, from his experience of everywhere he’d been before, he had a bunch of guys at Syracuse, certainly a bunch of guys when he was at Alabama — but he just really remarked about how athletic Lane was and that you’re not going to find that. It’s a rare commodity to find that athleticism in an offensive tackle.”
One week after Stoutland’s workout, the Eagles hosted Johnson at the team facility, where he met with team officials. Johnson told the Philadelphia Inquirer following that meeting that “it’s a good possibility” the Eagles would draft him, citing Kelly’s offense as a fit for his playing style. Peters was 31 at the time and coming off a season lost to a torn Achilles tendon. The thought, at least in 2013, was that a top tackle could become a day one starter on the right side and eventually replace Peters at left tackle. If the Eagles knew anything about Johnson, it was that he could move positions.
Part of Kelly’s research on Johnson included extensive conversations with then-Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops, who considered keeping Johnson at defensive end before the Sooners needed help on the offensive line. Stoops asked the strength coach what it would take to turn Johnson into a tackle. “A cheeseburger and a week,” Stoops was told.
“When you have friends at places, you can get some information,” Kelly said. “They raved about him, just work ethic, everything. … Everything we thought he confirmed. Especially Stout coming back from that workout, we were really high on him. And then when we get the confirmation from the head coach who coached him, what we believed was true, because sometimes you may see a kid, but you don’t get to know the day-to-day sometimes. You’re not around them. I think the scouting department did a great job on him. They really had exactly what he was so I don’t think his success was a surprise to I think the people in the building, because they knew that they had somebody special there.”
Where some teams may have seen inexperience, the Eagles saw room for growth.
“I think each time that Lane had to experience these setbacks — go play tight end, go play D-end, go play … — OK, he finally found a home at left tackle, right tackle, played tackle in college, I think that those experiences that he had helped him be the strong-minded workhorse that he is,” Stoutland said. “I believe that.”
When Johnson attended a pre-draft party in New York City, the contrast between him and some of the other prospects was stark. Joeckel, for instance, was dressed like a prospective congressman. Johnson wore a flannel and a trucker hat.
“That’s what an offensive lineman looks like!” Sarnoff said.
One of Johnson’s friends sent him a famous photo of Brett Favre wearing jean shorts during his draft party and joked that would be Johnson. Alas, Johnson agreed to squeeze into a gray suit the next night for the draft.
The Eagles’ heightened interest was signaled hours before the red carpet arrivals when they scheduled a last-minute meeting for Johnson to speak with the team’s sports psychologists. Sarnoff received a call from an ESPN reporter inquiring about the Eagles’ interest and told the reporter about the meeting, clearing it to be announced on air. Anything he could do to signal to the rest of the league they’d have to leapfrog the Eagles for Johnson’s services, thereby pushing Johnson from No. 4 to No. 3 and earning him a greater signing bonus in the process.
In Philadelphia, there were three players atop the Eagles’ board. With Joeckel expected to be off the board, they were comfortable with the prospect of drafting both Johnson and Jordan. When Fisher was selected first, they knew they would be able to draft one of the two. Lurie, according to his retelling at the 2022 league meetings, was rooting for Johnson because of Stoutland’s conviction.
“I remember (Stoutland) said to Howie, he said to me, he said to the room, ‘This player is not the best tackle day one, but if we just look at it of who is going to be the best tackle in the draft in two years, three years, this guy is going to be so much better than the other two tackles,'” Lurie said. “From that, I’m thinking, ‘Gosh, if we’re in a position where we’re choosing between two players or Lane is (there), we really need to elevate Lane to a position to where we have a chance to have him.’ … He was right, and Stout’s been right a lot more than he’s been wrong ever since.”
At No. 2, Jacksonville took Joeckel, marking the first time since the 1970 merger that offensive tackles had been the first two players selected. As television cameras focused on Johnson and announcers speculated whether he would make it three in a row, news broke that Miami had traded up from No. 12 to No. 3.
Kelly thought the Dolphins were trading up for Johnson, which the commentators on television believed. Roseman remembered hearing of Miami’s interest in Jordan. Sarnoff and Johnson did not consider the Dolphins to be a likely destination based on pre-draft discussions.
Roger Goodell then announced the Dolphins’ selection of Jordan. Analysts responded with surprise as the cameras rushed away from Johnson.
“So it wasn’t for Lane Johnson. It’s Dion Jordan, the Oregon Duck whose former college coach is now on the clock in Philadelphia,” Rich Eisen said on NFL Network’s broadcast.
At that point, the Eagles’ choice was easy. But what if Johnson and Jordan had been on the board? It’s a fascinating what-if in Eagles history. Miami clearly felt the need to jump Philadelphia for a reason.
“We were excited with Dion Jordan going three to get Lane,” Roseman said when asked 10 years later. “We were excited about the opportunity to get Lane. We felt like this was a unique player at a unique position.”
“You can’t predict what’s going to happen in front of you,” Kelly said. “I think we were all excited that he was still available at 4.”
Johnson took his picture with Goodell, went through a long line of media interviews, then moved on to celebrate the achievement with his family and Sarnoff at Brother Jimmy’s, a bar on the Upper East Side with barbecue and country music. Eagles security official Dom DiSandro picked Johnson up at the InterContinental hotel the next morning and drove him to Philadelphia, where Johnson has worked ever since.
“I think Howie and his group and those guys, there was a consensus for everybody about what they felt,” Kelly said. “I know everybody was in agreement with what we thought we got on that day. We thought we got a really good one. And that obviously panned out. Lane’s had an unbelievable career.”
The Eagles’ original plan for Johnson never came to fruition. Peters played another eight seasons in Philadelphia and Johnson never moved from right tackle. For the past decade, Johnson has been the league’s example for the value of the position. In a way, that has been a lasting legacy.
“I think what it changed for me was this perception that right tackle is different than left tackle,” Roseman said. “He really changed the game.”
Ten years later, whatever combination of evaluation and luck you’d like to give the Eagles, the results of the pick have been overwhelming. The traits paid off, as did the mindset that came with them.
Given the competitive streak apparent in the hotel lobby in Mobile, Johnson is probably aware that Fisher did not play a game in 2022, while Joeckel, according to his LinkedIn profile, is a senior real estate analyst after last playing in 2017.
“There’s not any doubt who the best player from that draft was,” Roseman said. “There’s none of the success we’ve had if we don’t have Lane Johnson on this team.”
(Top illustration: Samuel Richardson, The Athletic; Photo: Drew Hallowell / Philadelphia Eagles / Getty Images)
