Adrian Fedkiw
If the game was taking place Sunday it might be a different story, but the Philadelphia Eagles are preparing to be without right tackle Lane Johnson for Thursday night’s showdown with the Carolina Panthers.
Johnson suffered a concussion in the Eagles’ 34-7 win over the Arizona Cardinals and is currently in concussion protocol. Eagles head coach Doug Pederson gave an update on Johnson’s status on Monday.
With Lane, right now he’s in the protocol. I’ll get more information this afternoon when the players come in and meet with the doctors. That’s where he’s at coming out of the football game.
Since it’s a short week, Pederson believes it will be “tough” for Johnson to be cleared to play.
It’s tough based on the protocol and what the players have to go through. So, again, I’ll find out more this afternoon, but it’s hard on a short week.
Pederson also stated that he’s preparing Hailpoulivaati Vaitai to start at right tackle due to that brief period between games and felt like he played well when entered into action Sunday against Arizona. He didn’t allow a sack, hit or hurry once he was thrust into the game once Johnson went down.
Going forward kind of have to. Again, on a short week like this, players will be in today and we will work this afternoon and this evening, but I have to plan that way going into this game. Big V [T Halapoulivaati Vaitai] came in and started the third quarter. We went down and got the points right away, and played good. Played solid. He’s one that the more he plays, the better he gets. Even on a short week, for him not getting a ton of reps at tackle to come in off the bench like he does is just a tribute to the way he prepares himself and the way he battles and gets better every time he gets out there./blockquote>
The Eagles are 2-8 in the final 10 games that Johnson has missed, but Big V improved as the season went along last year. He’ll be in for a long night combatting Charles Johnson and Julius Peppers on Thursday. Philly, meanwhile, is 9-2 in the contests Johnson plays in. He’ll be missed, but the gap of the burden has been shrunk with Big V’s progress.
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