The Philadelphia Eagles will be without star right tackle Lane Johnson for the rest of the season after he told reporters Friday that his ankle injury will put an end to his 2020 campaign. Johnson added that "the inside of my ankle has collapsed" and is looking to have surgery to restore the function of his ankle's deltoid ligaments. The recovery time, per Johnson, will be around four to five months.
This injury dates back quite a way for Johnson, who has tried to go down multiple avenues, including tightrope surgery prior to the 2020 season, to get him on the field. Because of all that, a stress fracture developed in the midst of the season and is now putting him on the shelf.
"I got fell on in Jacksonville a couple of years ago, and then (against the) Giants last year, and so those two injuries kind of snowballed into this," Johnson said, via Howard Eskin of Sports Radio 94 WIP. "The two bones were separated so the ligaments were damaged or loose. They put those back together (with the offseason tightrope surgery). The deltoid ligament is the inside of your ankle so a lot of that damage caused it to loosen up and lose a lot of strength.
"As far as pushing off and things that you're normally able to do, eversion and inversion of the ankle is not what it is on the right leg so that's where I'm at. It's been damaged for some time and [I've been] trying to go through it as much as I could, but I kind of knew that this would be a difficult process to try and play. Like I said, we were making really good progress at times and then ... football's football. It is what it is. Things happen and that's where I'm at."
Johnson, who has played his entire eight-year career in Philadelphia, started in all seven of his games played this season, but was clearly laboring throughout the year. He said that his goal is to put this injury behind him to the point where he's not thinking about it prior to games or in practice anymore. With the veteran being out for the year, the Eagles should place him on injured reserve in the coming days. Meanwhile, Matt Pryor is in line to take over at right tackle for Philly going forward.