Lane Johnson used Pro Bowl snub as motivation

There were a few glaring Eagles omissions from the 2019 Pro Bowl rosters, including offensive lineman Lane Johnson. After news broke that he didn’t get named to this year’s roster, he ended up driving to the NovaCare Complex in the middle of the night.

Johnson is one of the best lineman in the NFL, has played through injuries, and put a lot of the team’s success and failures on his shoulders. As a heated competitor, not being recognized as one of the league’s best hit him hard, so he explained a little bit about how he took the news. (Spoiler: Not well.) Via Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic:

“Slept up there. I’m not joking. I swear to God. I slept in the locker room. Woke up around 7:30 to get breakfast and go to meetings.”

He had a lot of time in the building by himself, with facility staff going home, and Johnson there alone with his thoughts.

“I was pissed off. I couldn’t sleep. I don’t know. Call me psycho. I got a lot of pride. So it really pissed me off. ...I think the custodian staff went home. It was just me. I’m not making this shit up. I got my issues. So it is what it is.”

The snub acted as additional motivation for Johnson as he prepared to go against J.J. Watt — someone voted to the Pro Bowl — on Sunday. He was sure to point out that his performance against Watt should be noteworthy and should hopefully help him earn some votes for other post-season honors.

“I want to show what I can do against HOF guys, a guy that’s (got) 14.5 sacks. Go watch the tape, man. There is no chips, there’s no nothing. It’s 1-on-1. So hopefully I won’t get (f’d) out of some other votes coming up.”

The Eagles offensive line did an excellent job protecting Nick Foles against a strong Texans defense, and Johnson bears a lot of the load in 1-on-1 situations.

Johnson isn’t the only Eagles snub for the Pro Bowl either, with Jason Kelce and Malcolm Jenkins being omitted from the roster, too.