A Two-Time Super Bowl Champion Retired Mid-Season Over Mental Health. He Warned This Was Coming in 2021.
Lane Johnson ended his 14-season career with the Philadelphia Eagles on October 6, citing mental health instead of injury or age. He has talked publicly about an antidepressant withdrawal that cost him three games in 2021, and the NFL's own data shows players are now using mental health resources at roughly double that era's rate.
By Eli Okafor, Health & Wellness
· 3 min read · Updated
Key Takeaways
- •Lane Johnson, 36, retired on October 6, 2026, after 14 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, citing mental health rather than injury as the reason.
- •Johnson has discussed anxiety and depression publicly since 2021, when stopping an antidepressant without tapering led to withdrawal symptoms that cost him three games.
- •The NFL and NFLPA launched a Behavioral Health Network on September 1, 2026, administered by Cigna, offering players unlimited confidential outpatient mental health visits.
- •NFLPA data shows 82 percent of players used at least one mental wellness resource in 2024, up from 40 percent in 2021.
- •No public data quantifies how many NFL careers have ended primarily over mental health, so Johnson's case cannot be sized against a broader trend.
Lane Johnson announced his retirement from the Philadelphia Eagles on October 6, two days after he was inactive for a loss to the Los Angeles Rams with no injury listed. The two-time Super Bowl champion and six-time Pro Bowl right tackle said in a social media statement that the decision came down to his mental health, not his body or his age. He is 36, and he had started all 171 games he played since Philadelphia drafted him fourth overall in 2013.
“Right now, it is critical that I focus on my mental health. I owe it to my teammates, coaches, the organization and the fans to have my head and heart 100 percent in the game. And right now my heart is telling me that it's time to say goodbye to football.”
Johnson said he had wanted to, in his words, gut it out for one more season alongside teammates he called the brothers he never had. He played in three games this year before stepping away.
A history that goes back five years
Johnson has spoken publicly about anxiety and depression since 2021. That October, he stopped taking his prescribed antidepressant without tapering off it, during training camp and the first weeks of the season, and the withdrawal symptoms grew severe enough that he left the team hours before a game, drove home to Oklahoma, and sought treatment. He told The Philadelphia Inquirer at the time, "A lot of throwing up, every day... I was starting to throw up blood," and described tremors in his hands. He missed three games and returned about two weeks later.
What has changed since 2021
82%
of NFL players used a mental health resource in 2024
up from 40 percent in 2021, according to NFLPA data
The league and its players' union have built out formal support in the years since Johnson's 2021 episode. On September 1, 2026, the NFL and NFLPA launched a Behavioral Health Network administered by Cigna, giving players and their families confidential access to outpatient mental health providers with no cap on visits and no cost to the player. Every team has also been required since 2023 to employ at least one full-time licensed mental health clinician.
The bottom line
Johnson's retirement traces to a specific and long-documented struggle with anxiety and depression, not a new or vague concern. The league's own data shows players are using confidential mental health resources at roughly double the rate they were in 2021. No public count exists of how many NFL careers have ended primarily over mental health, so this case should not be read as proof of a broader wave, only as one well-documented example.
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, who has run the team since 1994, framed the retirement around Johnson's play rather than his health. "Lane excelled under multiple coaching staffs, maintaining an elite level of play throughout his entire career," Lurie said in a statement, adding that he expects Johnson to reach the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The Eagles went 122-63-1 in games Johnson started and 18-30 in the games he did not play, a gap the team now has to manage without him, and without a standard answer for how often a player at his level walks away for this reason instead of playing through it.
- Lane Johnson
- Philadelphia Eagles
- NFL mental health
- Behavioral Health Network
- anxiety and depression
Sources
- 01Eagles All-Pro RT Johnson retires to 'focus on my mental health', ESPNespn.com
- 02Eagles OT Lane Johnson announces retirement from NFL amid 14th season, NFL.comnfl.com
- 03Lane Johnson suffered withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants that cost him 3 Eagles games, The Philadelphia Inquirerinquirer.com
- 04NFL, NFLPA Announce Launch of Behavioral Health Network, NFLPAnflpa.com
Corrections
No corrections have been made to this article.
About the reporter
Health & Wellness Reporter, Trestlewire
I come from a health-policy and medical-reporting background, and I want to say the same thing up front that I say in nearly every piece I write: I am not a physician, and nothing I write is medical advice. My job is to report on health accurately — to explain what a study found, what it didn't, and what a reader can actually do with that — not to practice medicine from a keyboard.
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