Lane Johnson is the best player I've seen on the Eagles in 15 years. He changed the game when he played — and as Howie Roseman once said, he changed the way the right tackle position is viewed.
He's the rare player who was better in his 30s than his 20s — a tribute to the way he trained and the way he thought about the game.
He also became a fierce advocate for mental health later in his career. I'll never forget the emotion from Jason Kelce and Jeff Stoutland when he was named the Walter Payton Man of the Year candidate in 2023.
“Lane and I came here together in 2013. We were rookies together, and we’ve been together ever since,” Stoutland told me in a conversation that year. “So I’ve been able to watch his story and his ups and downs. And I watched him struggle — really struggle. And I watched the pain that he had to go through. ...From what he’s overcome, and what he does for other people and recognizes that he doesn’t want anybody to know. He’s not a hotshot. He doesn’t care about that. Just wants to help people that maybe are in or were in his situation.”
He's determined that his family and mental health require his attention at that point. You can respect the clarity required to reach that decision. Philadelphia will miss watching him play football.
@MattGelb@MattGelb It doesnt help that our geriatric general manager probably needed a nap after the first two trades. All those SPs changing teams and good ole Double D was asleep at the wheel.
LEBRON IS COMING TO PHILLY.
By the power vested in me as the Governor of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and a die-hard Sixers fan... I hereby proclaim today to be LEBRON JAMES DAY.
Welcome to the City of Brotherly Love, @KingJames.
@sportsreiter@mikefreemanNFL Youre making my point for me. FIFA always does whatever is in FIFA's best interest. Them, the IOC, and F1 governing body are...not exactly on the up & up. So let's just be thankful. It doesnt taint anything. Also VAR never should have been used that way so we're even.
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of Americans signed their names to a piece of parchment and made a promise no nation had ever made before: that we're all created equal, endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights — life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
We're the only nation in history built not on ethnicity, or blood, or geography but on an idea. That's always been what makes us exceptional. We chose that path 250 years ago but that’s where the work began, not where it ended. Every generation has had to choose it again. At Valley Forge, at Gettysburg, on the beaches of Normandy, in the streets of Selma. Americans recommitted themselves to the principles on which our nation was founded.
Now it's our turn.
There's nothing guaranteed about our democracy. We have to fight for it, defend it, and earn it. Over and over, year after year. That's not a burden. That's what it means to be an American.
250 years in, we still haven't fully lived up to those words in the Declaration. But we've never walked away from them, and this July 4, I hope all of us can commit to one thing: that we never will. I don't believe we're as divided as we're told we are. I've bet my whole life on the American people, and I'm not stopping now.
Happy 250th birthday, America. Our story isn't finished. Let's keep writing it together.