Getty All-Pro tackle Lane Johnson would be a perfect fit for the Cincinnati Bengals.
Lane Johnson missed Week 4 due to a personal matter that wasn’t disclosed until 90 minutes prior to kickoff. His status remains up in the air after head coach Nick Sirianni failed to provide an update on what is bothering the Pro Bowl right tackle.
The Philadelphia Eagles were already hurting on the offensive line with Brandon Brooks, Isaac Seumalo, Jordan Mailata all dealing with significant injuries. Second-year swing tackle Jack Driscoll started in place of Johnson against Kansas City, with Nate Herbig taking over at right guard and Landon Dickerson moving to left guard. Andre Dillard started at left tackle.
All in all, the unit played a pretty clean game save Dillard’s four penalties. They definitely weren’t the reason why the Eagles surrendered 417 yards and 42 points. Sirianni didn’t want to disclose why Johnson was absent on Sunday. And the first-year head coach continued to respect his player’s privacy when asked again about it on Monday (Oct. 4).
Nick Sirianni on why Lane Johnson missed today’s game: “I’m not going to discuss anything about Lane. Just a personal situation. I’m just not going to discuss that right now.” #Eagles #FlyEaglesFly
“No new update on Lane. Like I said yesterday [Oct. 3], he’s going through a personal matter and we’re just going to keep it at that for right now. I have no new update,” Sirianni told reporters. “As far as Jack [Driscoll] and Nate [Herbig], the guys that stepped in, I thought they did a great job, I really did. I thought they battled. They got put in a situation where they had to come and step in, and they did a very good job at that.”
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Vote of Confidence for Jonathan Gannon
The Eagles’ defense has looked like a defective pasta strainer in consecutive weeks. The unit has given up 83 points and 851 total yards over their last eight quarters. They have now allowed 40+ points in back-to-back losses for the first time since 2015. Prior to that, the last time it happened was 1966.
The Eagles allowed 40+ points once in 86 games under Jim Schwartz.
The Eagles have allowed 40+ points twice in 4 games under Jonathan Gannon.
So, yes, the defense has been problematic to say the least. But Sirianni expressed confidence in the ability of defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon to turn things around. It’s a rough patch in a long season.
“I’m still very confident in Jonathan,” Sirianni said. “Let’s not forget the first two weeks we stoned an Atlanta offense and then we stoned the San Francisco offense. At that point, there was a lot of chatter how good Jonathan was doing. And I still think he’s doing good.
“Obviously, you come off two games where you gave up – I’m not going to say they scored 40 points, his offense gave seven points up against Dallas, 35 points and 42 points, or whatever it was. That’s not good enough, right? We all know that.”
Eagles are giving up 26.5 points-per-game (9th-worst in the NFL) and 354.3 total yards-per-game (20th-worst). Their 150.3 yards-per-game surrendered on the ground is third-worst in the league. Plenty of room for improvement there. #Eagles #FlyEaglesFly
Sirianni: ‘Rougher Conversation’
Sirianni has been pretty forthcoming about how he conducts meetings the day following a tough loss. He closes the doors and forces his assistants to take ownership. The past three weeks have all been tense, with the latest one being the most introspective. One specific area addressed was penalties: the Eagles committed nine gaffes in Week 4, raising their league-worst total to 44.
“Today, it was a little bit rougher conversation when we went in there today,” Sirianni told reporters on Monday (Oct. 4). “It was just a little bit harsher conversation with how the penalties need to stop and what we need to do to make the penalties stop and all the different situations. I’m not sure there’s many teams spending as much time on this as we are.”