It’s no secret that, whenever league rules allow, the Philadelphia Eagles like to play things close to the vest when it comes to injuries. That’s why we saw so many hockey-style “lower-body” and “upper-body” injury notes during training camp this offseason. Normally, major injuries leak out or are obvious, such as the injury to Jalen Reagor or Andre Dillard and Brandon Brooks being lost for the season.
But sometimes the team is able to keep significant news a relative secret. Like what we heard about Lane Johnson today:
Johnson has been “day-to-day” and limited in practice for weeks, and now we know why. He had ankle surgery in August.
And according to NFL insider Adam Caplan, the procedure is related to the high ankle injury that Johnson was dealing with last season:
Johnson returned to practice in a limited form this week, and he will likely be listed as questionable when official injury designations are released on Friday. And while we can’t ever really trust with Doug Pederson or the Eagles have to say when it comes to injuries, Pederson did put on an optimistic front when he spoke to the media today.
The guess here is that Johnson is able to play on Sunday because it feels like the team would be a little bit more worried and would have kept an extra offensive lineman around if he was doubtful. Then again, one of the four players on their practice squad that the Eagles chose to protect this week was Sua Opeta. Opeta is an interior lineman, but it’s possible that the team wanted to make sure he stuck around in case Matt Pryor or Jack Driscoll had to slide out to right tackle in Week 1.
And if Johnson is out, the Eagles’ starting offensive line in Week 1 would be, well, not what the team was envisioning over the Summer.
We’ll know more soon.
UPDATE: Lane Johnson is officially listed as questionable for Week 1 at the Washington Football Team.
It is also worth noting that while Miles Sanders and Derek Barnett are questionable, Jalen Reagor doesn’t even have an injury designation for Sunday. The rookie is going to play.
