Philadelphia Eagles to host OT Lane Johnson for pre-draft visit

The Eagles have reportedly added Oklahoma OT Lane Johnson to the list of players that will visit the NovaCare complex before this month's draft. With the growing likelihood that the two top OTs, Eric Fisher and Luke Joeckel, will be off the board by the time the Eagles pick at #4 the Eagles are doing their diligence on the man widely seen as the #3 tackle in the class.

"The freakiest combine performance that I've seen since the NFL has been televising the combine is by an offensive tackle," said NFL Network draft analyst Mike Mayock. "What Lane Johnson did this year was the freakiest athletic performance I've ever seen."

"We get carried away with the 4.24 40 from Chris Johnson and who is going to beat him... But trust me go look up those numbers and you'll be astounded."

And he's right, Johnson's combine numbers are impressive. He was a top performer in the 40 (4.74), the vertical jump, broad jump, 3 cone drill & 20 yard shuttle. For a guy that's 6-6 and 303 pounds that really is an incredible workout. Add in that he's got prototypical 35+ inch arms and he's really as good of an offensive tackle specimen you'll ever see. Mayock said that while he ranks Johnson behind Fisher and Joeckel right now, he believes Lane has more upside than any offensive lineman in the class.

Plus, his tape is actually quite good. The main concerns with Johnson are simply experience. He was a quarterback through high school and junior college, before moving to tight end, defensive end and then right tackle in his first 3 seasons at Oklahoma. It was only last year that he got his first shot at LT. So this is a guy who has only played offensive for 2 seasons.

But because he played so well last year and is so perfectly built for the position, there are plenty of reasons to believe he's only going to get better and better. Plus, having played both right and left tackle, there could be some flexibility in terms of where the Eagles could use him.

If the Eagles did take Johnson, it's becoming increasingly likely that they'd have to do so at #4. If the top 2 tackles are gone there's a very good chance the Cardinals would take him at #7. If not, there's literally no chance he'd get by the offensive line starved Chargers at #11. In fact, if Johnson even got by the Eagles at #4 I'd expect the Chargers to start calling teams looking to trade up for him.