Over the next few weeks leading up to training camp, we\u2019ll be counting down the top 25 most important Eagles for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
25. Eli Stowers<\/a> He\u2019s 36 now and entering Year 14 in the NFL. But when he\u2019s healthy, there aren\u2019t many players in the NFL who are better than Lane Johnson.<\/p>\n He\u2019s a future Hall of Famer who hasn\u2019t lost a step yet. The Eagles need that to continue in 2026.<\/p>\n Last season, Johnson was playing at a familiarly high level until he suffered a Lisfranc injury in November. The plan was for Johnson to eventually return and that was the hope even into the playoffs. But ahead of the playoff game against the 49ers, Johnson\u2019s foot swelled again and he wasn\u2019t able to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Johnson is at the age where he considers retirement after every season, he actually wasn\u2019t very close to hanging up his cleats this offseason.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t want to go out that way,\u201d Johnson explained this spring.<\/p>\n Johnson said last month that he was feeling healthy again.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been able to play through stuff throughout the years but this was just something that took time,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThat\u2019s something that I didn\u2019t have at that point of the season. It was probably around February, March when I started to feel 100% but it took some time for it to heal up. I didn\u2019t want to go out on that note last year.\u201d<\/p>\n If you need more proof that Johnson is supremely important to the Eagles \u2014 and you probably don\u2019t \u2014 you can always just look at the records. Here\u2019s how the Eagles have fared with and without Johnson since the start of the 2016 season (including playoffs):<\/p>\n With Johnson: 94-41-1<\/p>\n Without Johnson: 15-28<\/p>\n In the first 13 seasons of his career, Johnson played for just one offensive line coach, so it\u2019s a big change for him now that Jeff Stoutland is no longer with the organization. While that news was an initial shock for Johnson this offseason, he has bought into the new offense being implemented by offensive coordinator Sean Mannion and seems legitimately excited about it.<\/p>\n \u201cHey man, I\u2019m about it,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cCoach (Chris) Kuper played for lots of years in the league. Not only coming to me as a coach but as a player, I have a lot of respect for him. Super smart. I just think how this offense here will help us. I think just stretching the field, stressing the defense more. I think it\u2019ll help us with our run blocking angles. I think it\u2019ll help us some in pass pro.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never had any guard help all these years. It\u2019s always been 1-on-1 so having the ability to be inside and having the guard come out and help me is a big deal for me. Me likey. Very excited. That\u2019s pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the next few weeks leading up to training camp, we\u2019ll be counting down the top 25 most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7353,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-244775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-eagles-analysis","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
24. Marcus Epps<\/a>
23. Dontayvion Wicks<\/a>
22. Tyler Steen<\/a>
21. Moro Ojomo<\/a>
20. Drew Mukuba<\/a>
19. Jihaad Campbell<\/a>
18. Nolan Smith<\/a>
17. Jalyx Hunt<\/a>
16. Dallas Goedert<\/a>
15. Makai Lemon<\/a>
14. Riq Woolen<\/a>
13. Cam Jurgens<\/a>
12. Landon Dickerson<\/a>
11. Jordan Davis<\/a>
10. Jonathan Greenard<\/a>
9. Zack Baun<\/a>
8. Cooper DeJean<\/a>
7. Jordan Mailata<\/a>
6. Saquon Barkley<\/a>
5. Quinyon Mitchell
<\/a>4. DeVonta Smith
<\/a>3. Lane Johnson<\/p>\n