The case for Eagles drafting Lane Johnson's replacement in 2026

As we look ahead to next week's draft, there's a strong case to be made for drafting Lane Johnson's replacement early.

By Dave Zangaro • Published April 17, 2026

Lane Johnson is clearly nearing the end of his Hall of Fame career. So it’s time to think about finding his replacement. 

That’s not a secret.

There’s a reason offensive tackle has become the most popular pick for the Eagles in dozens of mock drafts over the last couple of months. Everyone knows the importance of the position and how the Eagles like to operate.

But that doesn’t mean they’re going to force it.

When asked about how he knows when it’s time to find a replacement for a long-term starting offensive lineman, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman on Tuesday first pointed to the caliber of the potential prospect.

"If you're forcing something, you're not really filling the need anyway,” Roseman said.

Of course, if you have been following the pre-draft process and the mock draft circuit, it seems very possible that value and need will line up at offensive tackle when the Eagles are on the clock or near it next Thursday night. And it’s not hard to build the case for drafting Johnson’s eventual replacement in the first round.

Johnson will turn 36 in May and will enter Year 14 of his incredible career in 2026 after pondering retirement this offseason. Is it possible that Johnson plays beyond this season? Sure. And if Johnson plays well this season, the Eagles will be rooting for it. But the Eagles have also seen the value of drafting a replacement early to learn from an all-time great.

They did that to perfection in 2022 when they selected center Cam Jurgens in the second round out of Nebraska. Jason Kelce ended up playing two more seasons and Jurgens didn’t become a full-time starter until 2024, his third NFL season, but the Eagles saw the value in that relationship.

"I said when we talked about Kelce, at some point he was going to retire and then there'd be this legend of Jason Kelce, but Cam got to see it and he got to see what it took to be a Pro Bowl level player,” Roseman said. "There's value like that as long as the player in and of himself is worthy of the selection of wherever you're taking him.”

To that point, Roseman emphasized on Tuesday that having a mentor in place isn’t enough. The first thing on the checklist is the evaluation of the prospect. It has to be.

Roseman thought back to the questions the Eagles asked themselves before drafting Jurgens in 2022:

"Is this guy a Pro Bowl center? Do we think this guy can come in and play at an incredibly high level?”

In the case of Jurgens, the answer to both of those questions was yes. And in the years since, we’ve learned that the Eagles were spot-on with their evaluation.

If the Eagles do draft an offensive tackle in the first round next week, there’s not a clear path to playing time. For some teams, that would dissuade them from making such a pick. A rookie contract is just four years long (five years with an option for first-round picks), which means if a player has a redshirt rookie season, the team loses a quarter of their cost-controlled time with them.

But as Roseman explained on Tuesday, the Eagles care even less about that when it comes to early-round draft picks.

"I think when you're talking about the first-round picks, you're hoping you're getting a two-contract player that has Pro Bowl potential,” Roseman said. "So you're looking at it over hopefully 8, 9, 10-year period. Then I think as you go through the draft, those expectations change just based on really the research on those picks.

"When you're in the fifth round, can you expect that you're going to get an 8, 9, 10-year player based on the resource? Maybe not. Obviously that's what we're looking to do and that's what we're looking to hit on. So I think those come into account based on the players who are available and if there's a player that's available at a position that's perceived that we're strong at right now and we think this is going to be an elite player in the NFL, we're going to take that player.”

You don’t have to listen to Roseman’s words to believe that philosophy. You can see it with his draft picks on the offensive line. The last five times the Eagles have selected an offensive lineman on Day 1 or Day 2, they have done so without a clear path to playing time in their respective rookie seasons:

Tyler Steen in the third round (No. 65) in 2023
Cam Jurgens in the second round (No. 51) in 2022
Landon Dickerson in the second round (No. 37) in 2021
Andre Dillard in the first round (No. 22) in 2019
Isaac Seumalo in the third round (No. 79) in 2016

Of those five, the player who saw the most time as a rookie was Dickerson, who started 13 games as in 2021. But that wasn’t the plan. Dickerson eventually played when Brandon Brooks and Isaac Seumalo suffered injuries. So even if the plan isn’t to play a first-round pick this year, things can change.

If you’ve been paying attention in this pre-draft cycle, you know some of the names at offensive tackle who have been talked about in the Eagles’ range: Kadyn Proctor from Alabama, Max Iheanachor from Arizona State, Blake Miller from Clemson, Caleb Lomu from Utah and Monroe Freeling from Georgia, to name a few. It’s up to the Eagles to nail the evaluation and then we'll see how the draft unfolds.

But there’s a chance one of those players will become an Eagle next week and will get to learn behind Johnson in 2026. It’s a succession plan that makes sense if the Eagles can find the right guy.

"It starts there with evaluation of the player,” Roseman said. "And having guys like [Johnson] on this team and the elite level that he plays with, I think watching him and watching how he works, watching how he trains, watching how he dedicates his life to this game during the week, during the season. I mean that's instrumental in understanding what it takes to be a great pro. And so there's so much value in watching those guys instead of hearing about those guys.”

https://www.nbcsportsphiladelphia.com/nfl/philadelphia-eagles/lane-johnson-replacement-2026-nfl-draft-howie-roseman-jason-kelce-cam-jurgens/726900/