The Eagles will play a right tackle whose last start was a game in 2021

One by one, the Eagles continued to shed key players from Sunday’s game at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On Friday it was receiver DeVonta Smith. On Saturday it was receiver AJ Brown. Now, on Sunday, it was right to take action against Lane Johnson.

These are three key factors that the Eagles have used over the last two years to win a lot of games and reach the Super Bowl two seasons ago. With Johnson in the lineup, they won 88 games. Without him it’s 14-22.

So you understand the mountain the Eagles have to climb without three key pieces on the offensive side of the ball.

Fred Johnson will start in place of Lane Johnson, who was listed as questionable on the Eagles’ injury report on Friday. Johnson traveled to Tampa but failed to clear the league’s concession protocol in time to play.

This will be Fred Johnson’s first start since the 2021 season with the Cincinnati Bengals and just his ninth start since entering the NFL as an undrafted free agent in 2019.

Fred Johnson played 54 snaps replacing Lane Johnson in last week’s 15-12 win over the New Orleans Saints. He played well enough to earn the praise of his head coach Nick Sirianni.

“Fred is obviously very talented and has something that can’t be taught: tremendous size, strength and athleticism,” he said. “He came here and got a fresh start here, and he worked his butt off.”

Johnson has also taken over coaching duties from line coach Jeff Stoutland.

“Stout pushes him,” Sirianni said. “When we got home on the plane, I said to Stout (earlier in the week), ‘Man, I enjoy going to your place – I used to go to the offensive line meeting room once a week.’ “I really enjoyed going into the offensive line meeting room and listening to that,” and listening to how Stout coaches those guys and how those guys respond and how those guys respond.

“I know he pushed Fred. I heard him pushing Fred in that meeting room on Thursday just to get better. ….all he cares about is that Fred gets better, and then Fred puts in the time, puts in the work, and puts in all the things he does to get better.

“Now Fred just has to build on it. This is a great springboard to build on and use your momentum to continue playing better football.”

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