Lane Johnson’s retirement has turned the Eagles’ offensive line situation from shaky to flat-out alarming, and it leaves Philadelphia staring at the same question with even less wiggle room: what can they do right now to keep the front five from unraveling?
The answer, at least in this reporting, points straight to Mekhi Becton.
Philadelphia is headed to London for an early-morning matchup with the Jacksonville Jaguars with the line stretched thin. Landon Dickerson is on IR after limping through Week 1 against the Washington Commanders.
Cam Jurgens, who shifted from center to left guard in Dickerson’s place, didn’t give the group much of a boost before reporting concussion symptoms and entering the protocol on Monday. Tyler Steen has played well, but he’s due to hit free agency after the season.
And if Jurgens can’t go, the Eagles are looking at Markel Bell, Drew Kendall, and Willie Lampkin as part of the mix - three players with very limited NFL experience.
That’s where the depth chart gets frightening. The Eagles went into Week 4 without a backup tackle active, with Fred Johnson sidelined by a knee injury and Howie Roseman declining to elevate Kiran Amegadjie or John Ojukwu from the practice squad. If Jurgens and the Johnsons are unavailable, Philadelphia would be down to just six healthy offensive linemen for Week 5.
Becton, meanwhile, is sitting on the Green Bay Packers’ practice squad, and he’s a familiar name for the Eagles for a reason. When free agency opened in March of 2025, he made it clear he didn’t want to go anywhere else. He said he loved his time in Philadelphia, thanked the organization before signing with the Los Angeles Chargers on a two-year, $20 million deal in March of 2025, and even told the Eagles to “call me” when asked in Week 3 about a possible return in 2026.
Because he’s on a practice squad now, the old Week 5 wrinkle about Green Bay protecting him doesn’t apply in the same way. In 2026, Philadelphia could sign him immediately if it wants to, as long as the Packers don’t move him to their 53-man roster first.
There are obvious complications. The Eagles are not the same team Becton left. They have Sean Mannion as offensive coordinator, their second since Kevin Patullo’s 2025 disaster, they’re building around an outside-zone run game, and Chris Kuper is now coaching the line after replacing Jeff Stoutland, the longtime presence who helped revive Becton’s career.
Still, the need is loud enough to drown out most of the concern. Philadelphia has only eight offensive linemen on its 53-man roster, and just six are healthy enough to play right now. Even with the adjustment period Becton would need to learn Mannion and Kuper’s systems, adding a player with 19 games of experience protecting Jalen Hurts is the kind of move that makes sense when the alternative is scrambling.
He can help at guard, and he can also cover tackle in a pinch. If needed, he could even open the door for Steen to move to right tackle while Becton slides inside. That kind of flexibility matters when the roster is this battered.
At this point, the Eagles need competent line play before they need anything else. Becton isn’t a cure-all, but he does offer a low-risk, medium-reward fix that could help now and still matter later, when more decisions on the offensive line will have to be made. And with the way things are going, that’s exactly the sort of move Philadelphia can’t afford to ignore.
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Eagles May Need O-Line Help More Than The Trade Market Can Offer
The offensive line market has become one of the leagues quiet pressure points, and Philadelphia is right in the middle of it. With injuries and retirements thinning out depth across the NFL, the Eagles join teams like the Packers, Patriots and Ravens as clubs that could be looking for help, even if the trade buzz around that need has not really started to build yet.
ESPNs Dan Graziano pointed to that group as possible participants if the market ever opens up, but the problem is obvious: good linemen are hard to find and even harder to pry loose. For the Eagles, the bigger issue may be whether the help they need is even available in a market where demand is already outpacing supply. [Read more 🡒]