MOORESTOWN, N.J. — When Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Lane Johnson heard entrepreneur Naval Ravikant quote Confucius on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, he stopped what he was doing.
“Every man has two lives, and the second begins when he realizes he has only one,” Confucius said.
The words resonated with Johnson more than they would have before his second life began.
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His first life was not all bouquets, hosannas and victory cigars. There were feelings of inadequacy, pressure and despondency.
But now, as he participates in his fifth Pro Bowl and waits to hear if he will be named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year, Johnson experiences a very different feeling — gratitude.
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The first life
About two hours north of Houston at Groveton High School, Johnson was a big-armed quarterback in a class of 30. Power 5 schools didn’t show much interest, but he was not deterred. Instead of walking on at Texas Tech, he chose Kilgore Community College outside of Dallas, taking a chance that he would be noticed. Johnson gave himself one season, one make-or-break season, to become a player football schools would fight over.
That’s when it began.
The panic was consuming. His regular morning routine included throwing up or dry heaving. The feeling of being rested was a memory. Judgment and ability to focus were clouded.
Football was the easy part, as he drew acclaim at two positions, quarterback and tight end. The big schools liked what they saw, and he chose Oklahoma over TCU. But then, a higher level of competition meant higher expectations, which meant higher anxiety.
He began at Oklahoma as a scout team quarterback but stressed about every misstep, losing his appetite and then his bulk. Fortunately, he found a teammate with similar feelings, another struggling perfectionist. He and tight end Josh New shared their struggles and solutions, and together they took advantage of the university’s psychological resources for players. Without New, Johnson might still be living his first life.
Johnson switched to tight end, then defensive end and finally to offensive tackle as a junior. In his senior year, he was named third-team All-America by CBS Sports. A few days after playing in the Cotton Bowl, he married his college sweetheart. Then he was a Senior Bowl star, voted Most Outstanding Lineman. Recently Johnson was named to the game’s 75th anniversary team.
His workout was the talk of the NFL Scouting Combine as he finished in the 99th percentile in the 40-yard dash and the 98th percentile in the broad jump. His arms measured 35.5 inches — nearly long enough to reach a linebacker from his stance. But satisfaction still was always just out of reach.
The Eagles made Johnson the fourth pick of the 2013 draft, and he was a day-one starter.
In the offseason after his rookie year, he tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and was suspended for the first four games of the season. After becoming the highest-paid right tackle in the league two years later with a six-year, $63 million extension and $35.5 million guaranteed, Johnson failed another PED test and was suspended 10 games.
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In an appeal, he attributed the first failed test to a drug prescribed by a family physician. After the second incident, he told reporters he had taken an over-the-counter amino acid that he did not know contained a banned substance. The suspension voided part of his contract and cost him about $2.5 million, he says, and also precipitated a lawsuit against the NFL and NFL Players Association that eventually was dropped.
The PED stigma made him a target in stadiums, on social media and even on his own team. “It was tough going to practice the next year,” he says.
Through the angst, he kept making his blocks. In 2017, he was named to the Pro Bowl for the first time, and then he became a Super Bowl champion. The suspensions shadowed him, though. Teammate Jason Kelce, dressed as a mummer, joked about it in a wild championship parade speech. “Lane Johnson can’t lay off the juice!” he bellowed.
Midway through the following season, quarterback Carson Wentz fell on the back of Johnson’s leg in a game against the Jacksonville Jaguars in London. Johnson missed one game, but the injury wouldn’t heal. Two years later, it still bothered him. The ankle gave out while he was trying to slow a bull rush in a training camp practice. Two surgeries followed.
In 2021, three years after Wentz fell on him, the ankle still was a problem — a bigger problem than ever. He was in pain, constant pain, and couldn’t push off on the leg.
Johnson says he didn’t want to complain to team trainers because he feared it would be used against him. When Johnson was in high school, he dug graves for a part-time job. His approach to his injury wasn’t much different — shovel to earth, shovel to earth, shovel to earth.
As he degenerated physically, he languished emotionally.
He and his wife had recently separated, which led to an eventual divorce. He also was trying to wean himself off the antidepressant Paxil and was experiencing withdrawal symptoms — shaking hands, nausea and insomnia.
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“I was a shell of my former self, and I didn’t want to play anymore,” he says.
On Oct. 3, 2021, Johnson, without warning, didn’t show for the Eagles-Chiefs game at Lincoln Financial Field.
Intent on retiring, he drove home to Oklahoma. He did not return messages from his team.
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The second life
Johnson walks his dog on a trail not far from where he lives.
He sits with friends around a firepit in his yard.
In a preserve up the road, he hunts for quail with teammate Fletcher Cox.
Johnson throws a fishing line in a lake with Kelsey Holmer, his girlfriend of about two years, by his side.
When he starts to feel anxious, Johnson gets outside, and the anxiety dissipates.
Maintaining a routine helps, as does practicing the Wim Hof breathing method, eating well and spending time in his hyperbaric chamber.
He does concentration grids and crossword puzzles and plays Sudoku and a brain game called Stroop Effect on his phone. It’s especially helpful in the locker room before a game or practice when the bass thumps and the energy is tense.
If Holmer senses he is off, she asks if he’s OK. They have regular “mental health check-ins.”
Johnson’s new way works better than taking antidepressants, he is certain. He still feels anxiety before games and has his ritualistic pregame vomit, but he doesn’t have debilitating anxiety anymore.
When he skipped out on the game against the Chiefs in 2021, it was the first of three games he missed. Eventually, Johnson thought he owed it to his teammates to finish the season before retiring, and he owed it to the world to talk honestly about what he had experienced.
Slowly, his ankle came around, and he stopped thinking about retirement. Johnson’s recently completed 11th NFL season may have been his best as a pro, according to Eagles offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland. “He’s played unbelievably,” Stoutland says.
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Johnson is most proud of keeping his quarterbacks clean — Stoutland says he never gets flat-out beat in pass protection even though he hardly ever gets help. He also has been a commanding run blocker. With the auburn beard of a lumberjack, Johnson rolls defenders to the side like fallen tree trunks.
His resume says he has been the dominant right tackle of his generation. It is similar to the resume of former Bengals right tackle Willie Anderson, a semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s class of 2024 that will be announced next week. Eagles general manager Howie Roseman has called Johnson “one of the greatest offensive tackles in the history of the game” and said the Eagles wouldn’t have had any of the success they had in the last decade without him.
Skeptics will say his career is tainted because of the PED issues. But three of his four All-Pro selections and two of his Pro Bowl selections came after the suspensions. And since his second positive test, Johnson estimates the league requires him to give urine or blood for random drug tests about once a week.
“I’m the most drug-tested guy in the NFL, or one of them,” he says. “And justifiably so.”
These days Johnson doesn’t use many supplements besides NSF-certified whey protein powder and vitamins dispensed by his team. But he has put on weight steadily as he’s aged with the red meat/white rice heavy Vertical Diet, going from 315 pounds to his current weight of 335.
At 33, Johnson, a father of three, has grown in many ways.
Stoutland, who has been Johnson’s position coach for each of his NFL seasons, remembers working him out at his high school before the 2013 draft.
“Looking at him now, he’s a totally different person,” Stoutland says. “He went through a lot. He struggled. But he overcame, and all of it made him stronger. I don’t think he really was aware of everything he had. He is now.”
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Holmer has noticed Johnson seeing things more clearly. Stoutland says he’s never been happier.
“As a young guy, you tend to overlook things and don’t appreciate them,” Johnson says. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate.”
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Johnson has a tub for cold plunges in his home. On the door of the tub is a sticker with one word — “Grateful.”
He is grateful — “eternally grateful” — for the Eagles, who have stuck by him through Chip Kelly, Doug Pederson and Nick Sirianni.
“When things weren’t going well, they were with me the whole way,” he says. “They probably had more confidence in me than I had in myself.”
He has gratitude for Holmer. They were drawn together partly because of their mutual love of fishing and country music. Now she helps create a safe place where he can foster an identity beyond No. 65.
He is thankful for Stoutland, who has been committed to bringing out his best. The coach knows when the player is off, and that’s when Stoutland calls for a timeout.
For his former teammate Brandon Brooks, he has much appreciation. They played next to one another and vomited next to one another. Brooks has been out of the league for a couple of seasons, but Johnson witnessed Brooks discuss his anxiety — and face ridicule because of it. It’s been easier for Johnson to walk his path after Brooks cleared it.
Johnson frequently thanks Gabe Rangel for all he does, especially after a big game or receiving an honor. He tells him he loves him like a brother. For five years, Rangel has been Johnson’s personal strength and recovery coach, but the former Marine is more than that. When Johnson cut himself off from the team in 2021, Rangel was the conduit.
Johnson appreciates Brian Cain and Lonny Rosen. He talks weekly with Cain, a mental performance coach who has helped him navigate his anxiety. He also has been counseled regularly by Rosen, a Michigan State professor. They met in 2011 when Rosen administered psychological tests on draftees for the Eagles. He identified resiliency in Johnson and recommended the Eagles select him.
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He is thankful to have Ken Sarnoff negotiate his contracts and so much more. “He’s a good friend, and a lot of people don’t have that kind of relationship with their agent,” Johnson says.
Johnson appreciates his marketing agent Brian Bradtke. When Johnson decided to get off social media, he entrusted Bradtke with handling his accounts.
Johnson gives thanks for Eagles chief security officer Dom DiSandro — “Big Dom” as he is known. During Johnson’s dark night in 2021, Big Dom flew to see him and helped him understand he was not alone.
He has gratitude for his father, David, and his mother, Ray Ann Carpentier. A bull rider-turned-construction worker, David now resides at and cares for Lane’s 500-acre ranch in Oklahoma. Carpentier cleaned houses to get by as a single mom raising Lane, then became a therapist for inmates on death row. She is a cancer survivor.
Johnson’s son Jace is 10, his daughter, Journey, is 7 and his son Channing is 4. They live in Oklahoma with their mother, but he sees them frequently. He is thankful for the perspective they bestow.
Johnson is grateful for Cabo, a 9-month-old Sheepadoodle. So happy, Cabo spreads smiles.
Feeling appreciation is part of Johnson’s second life. Showing it is another.
Gratitude takes many forms.
Under Rangel’s supervision, Johnson regularly hosts teammates and other athletes at the gym behind his house. Among the regulars have been Kelce, Wentz, offensive tackle Jordan Mailata, quarterback Jalen Hurts and NFL Network analyst Brian Baldinger. They come even when he’s not around. The structure, once a barn with six horse stalls, was renovated by Johnson and is in its second life. “The Bro Barn,” he calls it.
These days, Johnson speaks in team meetings and shares wisdom with younger players.
“He never used to interact like that before,” Stoutland says. “I don’t think he had the confidence or felt comfortable the way he does now.”
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Families who lost a member in combat are called “Gold Star Families.” Johnson invited a Gold Star Family to every road game last season, paying for their expenses and spending time with the group beforehand. He sang on two Christmas albums with Kelce and Mailata that raised more than $3 million for charity. He personally donated $500,000 to upgrade the workout facility at his junior college.
As much as he is a Super Bowl champion, he is the NFL’s champion of mental health. He frequently speaks to groups on the subject and is an ambassador for Kooth, which provides emotional counseling and support for young people in Philadelphia. On “Mental Health Mondays,” he posts social media messages about his experiences, coping mechanisms and inspirations.
Johnson’s transparency gave Mailata the courage to seek help for his mental health issues. Last fall a few Raiders players D.M.’d Johnson on Instagram to ask for advice on dealing with anxiety. He provided guidance on quieting their minds and improving their focus, as he did for college athletes from BYU and Clemson who sought him out. Johnson also has advised many others at the yearly O-Line Masterminds conference, which he co-founded.
The Eagles told him of his nomination for the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award in an emotional meeting. It was videotaped and posted on their website.
“Everybody finally sees who you are,” Kelce told him. “When I think of a man, I think of somebody who weathers the ups and downs in life, how you move forward. You’re doing better than I’ve ever seen and it’s so f—ing awesome to see. And I know it ain’t all been perfect all the time. But there ain’t a mother f—er in the NFL that represents that award better than you.”
In the middle of Johnson’s kitchen island is a vase with a dozen mixed roses he gave to Holmer.
In the accompanying note, he told her 2023 was the best year yet, and he can’t wait to see what 2024 brings.
What his gesture really said, like so much of what Johnson does, was “thank you.”
(Top photo: Mitchell Leff / Getty Images)
