The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. In the 2017 season the team won Super Bowl LII, their first Super Bowl win in franchise history and their fourth NFL title overall, after winning the Championship Game in 1948, 1949, and 1960.
The franchise was established in 1933 as a replacement for the bankrupt Frankford Yellow Jackets, when a group led by Bert Bell secured the rights to an NFL franchise in Philadelphia. Bell, Chuck Bednarik, Bob Brown, Brian Dawkins, Reggie White, Steve Van Buren, Tommy McDonald, Greasy Neale, Pete Pihos, Sonny Jurgensen, and Norm Van Brocklin have been inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The team has had an intense rivalry with the New York Giants. This rivalry is the oldest in the NFC East and is among the oldest in the NFL. It was ranked by NFL Network as the number one rivalry of all-time, Sports Illustrated ranks it as the fourth-best rivalry in the NFL,[4] and according to ESPN, it is one of the fiercest and most well-known rivalries in the American football community.[5] They also have a bitter rivalry with the Dallas Cowboys, which has become more high-profile since the 1960s, as well as a historic rivalry with the Washington Redskins. Their rivalry with the Pittsburgh Steelers is another bitter rivalry known as the battle of Pennsylvania, roughly dating back to 1933. It mostly arises from the two teams' statuses as being from opposite ends of the same state.[6]
The team consistently ranks among the best in the league in attendance and has sold out every game since the 1999 season.[7][8] In a Sports Illustrated poll of 321 NFL players, Eagles fans were selected as the most intimidating fans in the NFL
NFL in Philadelphia (1899–1931)
The Frankford Athletic Association was organized in May 1899 in the parlor of the Suburban Club. The cost of purchasing a share in the association was $10. However, there were also contributing memberships, ranging from $1 to $2.50, made available to the general public. The Association was a community-based non-profit organization of local residents and businesses. In keeping with its charter, which stated that "all profits shall be donated to charity", all of the team's excess income was donated to local charitable institutions. The original Frankford Athletic Association apparently disbanded prior to the 1909 football season. Several of the original players from the 1899 football team kept the team together, and they became known as Loyola Athletic Club. In keeping with Yellow Jackets tradition, they carried the "Frankford" name again in 1912, to become the Frankford Athletic Association.
In the early 1920s, the Frankford Athletic Association's Yellow Jackets gained the reputation as being one of the best independent football teams in the nation. In 1922, Frankford absorbed the Philadelphia City Champion team, the Union Quakers of Philadelphia. That year, Frankford captured the unofficial championship of Philadelphia. During the 1922 and 1923 seasons the Yellow Jackets compiled a 6–2–1 record against teams from the National Football League. This led to the Association being granted an NFL franchise in 1924, thus becoming the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Midway through the 1931 season, the Yellow Jackets went bankrupt and were forced to cease operations.[10]
Wray and Bell era (1933–1940)
After more than a year of searching for a suitable replacement, the NFL granted an expansion franchise to a syndicate headed by Bert Bell and Lud Wray and awarded them the franchise rights of the failed Yellow Jackets organization. The Bell-Wray group had to pay an entry fee of $3,500 (equal to $41,187 today) and assumed a total debt of $11,000 that was owed to three other NFL franchises.[11] Drawing inspiration from the Blue Eagle insignia of the National Recovery Administration—the centerpiece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal[11]—Bell and Wray named the new franchise the Philadelphia Eagles. Neither the Eagles nor the NFL officially regard the two franchises as the same, citing the aforementioned period of dormancy. Furthermore, almost no Yellow Jackets players were on the Eagles' first roster. The Eagles, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the now-defunct Cincinnati Reds, joined the NFL as expansion teams. Lud Wray became the Eagles first head coach after being convinced by Bell to take the position. The team originally planned to play their home games at Shibe Park, which was the home of the Philadelphia Athletics baseball club. When negotiations fell through the team managed to make a deal with the Athletics' crosstown rival, the Philadelphia Phillies to play at the Baker Bowl.
The Eagles played their first game on October 15, 1933, against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City. They lost the game 56-0.[12] The Eagles struggled over the course of their first decade, never winning more than four games. Their best finish was in their second season, 1934, when they finished tied for third in the East. For the most part, the Eagles' early rosters were composed of former Penn, Temple and Villanova players who played for a few years before going on to other things.
In 1935 Bell proposed an annual college draft to equalize talent across the league. The draft was a revolutionary concept in professional sports. Having teams select players in inverse order of their finish in the standings, a practice still followed today, strove to increase fan interest by guaranteeing that even the worst teams would have the opportunity for annual infusions of the best college talent.[13] Between 1927 (the year the NFL changed from a sprawling Midwestern-based association to a narrower, major-market league) and 1934, a triopoly of three teams (the Chicago Bears, New York Giants and Green Bay Packers) had won all but one title since 1927 (the lone exception being the Providence Steam Roller of 1928). By 1936 the club had suffered significant financial losses and was sold through a public auction. Bert Bell was the only bidder and became the sole owner of the team. Wray refused a reduction in his salary and left the team. Bell assumed the head coaching position and led the team to a record of 1-11, for last place in the league.
In 1940 the Eagles moved to Shibe Park (renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1954) and played their home games at the stadium through 1957, except for during the 1941 season, which was played at Municipal Stadium, where they had played from 1936 to 1939. To accommodate football at Shibe Park during the winter, management set up stands in right field, parallel to 20th Street. Some 20 feet high, these "east stands" had 22 rows of seats. The goalposts stood along the first base line and in left field. The uncovered east stands enlarged capacity of Shibe Park to over 39,000, but the Eagles rarely drew more than 25,000 to 30,000.[14] The team finished the 1937 season 2-8-1 and would continue to struggle over the next three seasons.
Greasy Neale era (1941–1950)
See also: 1947 NFL Championship Game, 1948 NFL Championship Game, and 1949 NFL Championship Game
In December 1940, Bell conciliated the sale of Art Rooney's Steelers to Alexis Thompson,[15] and then Rooney acquired half of Bell's interest in the Eagles.[16] In a series of events known as the Pennsylvania Polka,[15] Rooney and Bell exchanged their entire Eagles roster and their territorial rights in Philadelphia to Thompson for his entire Steelers roster and his rights in Pittsburgh.[17] Ostensibly, Rooney had provided assistance to Bell by rewarding him with a 20% commission on the sale of the Steelers.[18] Bell became the Steelers head coach and Rooney became the general manager.[19]
After assuming ownership, Thompson promptly hired Earle "Greasy" Neale as the team's head coach. In its first years under Neale, the team continued to struggle by finishing the 1941 season with a 2-8-1 record. The 1942 season showed no improvement as the team went 2-9.
"Steagles" (1943)
In 1943 when manpower shortages stemming from World War II made it impossible to fill the roster, the team merged with the Pittsburgh Steelers forming the "Phil-Pitt Eagles", known as the "Steagles." Greasy Neale coached the team along with Steelers head coach Walt Kiesling. The team finished the season with a 5–4–1 record. (The merger, never intended as a permanent arrangement, was dissolved at the end of the season.
In 1944, led by head coach Greasy Neale and running back Steve Van Buren, the Eagles had their first winning season in team history. After two more second-place finishes in 1945 and 1946, the team reached the NFL Championship game for the first time in 1947. Van Buren, Pete Pihos, and Bosh Pritchard fought valiantly, but the young team fell to the Chicago Cardinals 28–21 at Chicago's Comiskey Park.
NFL Champions (1948)
Undeterred, the young squad rebounded in 1948 and returned to the NFL Championship game. With home-field advantage (and a blinding snowstorm) on their side, the Eagles won their first NFL Championship against the Chicago Cardinals, by a score of 7–0. The only score of the game came in the fourth quarter when Steve Van Buren ran for 5 yard touchdown. Due to the severity of the weather, few fans were on hand to witness the joyous occasion.
NFL Champions (1949)
Before the start of the 1949 season,the team was sold by Thompson to a syndicate of 100 buyers, known as the "Happy Hundred", each of whom paid a fee of $3,000 for their share of the team. While the leader of the "Happy Hundred" was noted Philadelphia businessman James P. Clark, one unsung investor was Leonard Tose, a name that would eventually become very familiar to Eagles fans.[20]
The team returned to the NFL Championship game for the third consecutive year. The Eagles were favored by a touchdown,[21][22][23] and won 14–0 for their second consecutive shutout in the title game. Running back Steve Van Buren rushed for 196 yards on 31 carries for the Eagles and their defense held the Rams to just 21 yards on the ground
Chuck Bednarik was selected as the first overall pick in the 1949 NFL Draft. An All-American lineman/linebacker from the University of Pennsylvania, Bednarik would go on to become one of the greatest and most beloved players in Eagles history.
With the turn of the decade came another turn in team fortunes. In 1950 the Eagles were slated to open the season against the AAFC champion Cleveland Browns, who had just (along with the other AAFC franchises) joined the NFL. The Eagles were expected to make short work of the Browns, who at the time were widely considered the dominant team in a lesser league. However, the Browns lit up the Eagles' vaunted defense for 487 total yards, including 246 passing yards, in a 35–10 rout. The Eagles never really recovered, and finished 6–6.
McMillin, Millner, Trimble and Devore era (1951-1957)
Greasy Neale retired after the 1950 season and was replaced by Bo McMillin. Two games into the 1951 season, McMillin was forced to retire due to terminal stomach cancer. Wayne Millner finished out the season before being replaced by Jim Trimble.
While the remnants of the great 1940s teams managed to stay competitive for the first few years of the decade, and while younger players like Bobby Walston and Sonny Jurgensen occasionally provided infusions of talent, the team lacked the stuff of true greatness for most of the 1950s.
After the 1957 season, the Eagles moved from Connie Mack Stadium to Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin Field would seat over 60,000 for the Eagles, whereas Connie Mack had a capacity of 39,000.[25] The stadium switched from grass to AstroTurf in 1969. It was the first NFL stadium to use artificial turf.
Buck Shaw era (1958-1960)
See also: 1960 NFL Championship Game
In 1958 the franchise took key steps to improve, hiring Buck Shaw as head coach and acquiring Norm Van Brocklin in a trade with the Los Angeles Rams. During the 1959 season the team showed real flashes of talent, and finished in second place in the Eastern Division. Former Eagles owner and co-founder Bert Bell, who at the time was the commissioner of the NFL, attended a game on October 11 at Franklin Field. The Eagles were facing the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team who Bell also used to own. The Eagles had box seats reserved for him but Bell refused them and purchased his own tickets to sit with the fans. During the fourth quarter of the game while sitting behind the end zone, he had suffered a heart attack and died later that day.
NFL Champions (1960)
1960 remains the most celebrated year in Eagles history. Shaw, Van Brocklin and Chuck Bednarik (each in his last season before retirement) led a team more notable for its grit than its talent (one observer later quipped that the team had "nothing but a championship") to its first division title since 1949. The team was aided by their two Pro Bowl receivers, WR Tommy McDonald (who would later pen a short autobiography titled "They Pay Me to Catch Footballs") and TE Pete Retzlaff. On December 26, 1960, one of the coldest days in recorded Philadelphia history, the Eagles faced Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers in the NFL title game and dealt the mighty Lombardi the sole championship game loss of his storied career. Bednarik lined up at center on offense and at linebacker on defense. Fittingly, the game ended as Bednarik tackled a struggling Jim Taylor and refused to allow him to stand until the last seconds had ticked away.[26]
Skorich, Kuharich, Williams and Khayat era (1961–1972)
Van Brocklin had come to Philadelphia and agreed to play through 1960 with the tacit understanding that, upon his retirement as a player, he would succeed Shaw as head coach. Ownership, however, opted to promote assistant coach Nick Skorich instead, and Van Brocklin quit the organization in a fit of pique, instead becoming head coach of the expansion Minnesota Vikings. Back up quarterback Sonny Jurgensen became the starter for the 1961 season. The team finished just a half-game behind the New York Giants for first place in the Eastern Conference standings with a 10–4 record. Despite the on-the-field success, however, the franchise was in turmoil.
The 1962 team was decimated by injury, and managed only three wins and were embarrassed at home in a 49–0 loss against the Packers. The off-field chaos would continue through 1963, as the remaining 65 shareholders out of the original Happy Hundred sold the team to Jerry Wolman, a 36-year-old millionaire Washington developer who outbid local bidders for the team, paying an unprecedented $5,505,000 for control of the club. In 1964 Wolman hired former Cardinals and Washington Redskins coach Joe Kuharich to a 15-year contract. Over the next five seasons the team failed to make the playoffs each year.
In 1969 Leonard Tose bought the Eagles from Wolman for $16,155,000[27] (equal to $110,372,954 today), then a record for a professional sports franchise. Tose's first official act was to fire Coach Joe Kuharich after a disappointing 24–41–1 record during his five-year reign. He followed this by naming former Eagles receiving great Pete Retzlaff as General Manager and Jerry Williams as coach.
With the merger of the NFL and AFL in 1970, the Eagles were placed in the NFC East Division with their archrivals the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins, and the Dallas Cowboys. Their heated rivalry with the Giants is the oldest of the NFC East rivalries, dating all the way back to 1933 and is often named as one of the best rivalries in the NFL.[28][29]
In 1971 the Eagles moved from Franklin Field to brand-new Veterans Stadium. In its first season, the “Vet” was widely acclaimed as a triumph of ultra-modern sports engineering, a consensus that would be short-lived. Equally short-lived was Williams' tenure as head coach. After a 3–10–1 record in 1970 and three consecutive blowout losses to Cincinnati, Dallas and San Francisco to open the 1971 season, Williams was fired and replaced by assistant coach Ed Khayat, a defensive lineman on the Eagles' 1960 NFL championship team. Williams and Khayat were hampered by Retzlaff's decision to trade longtime starting quarterback Norm Snead to the Minnesota Vikings in early 1971, leaving the Eagles a choice between journeyman Pete Liske and the raw Rick Arrington.
Khayat lost his first two games, but won six of the final nine in 1971 thanks to the exploits of the defense, led by All-Pro safety Bill Bradley, who led the NFL in interceptions (11) and interception return yardage (248).
The team regressed in 1972, and Khayat was released after the Eagles finished 2–11–1. The two wins (both on the road) proved to be surprises, however. Philadelphia beat the Kansas City Chiefs (which had the best record in the AFC a year before) 21–20 and the Houston Oilers 18–17 on six field goals by kicker Tom Dempsey. The latter game became known as the "Johnny Rodgers Bowl", because the loser would finish with the worst record in the league and obtain the first overall draft pick of 1973, which was then assumed to be Nebraska wingback Johnny Rodgers. The Oilers ultimately got the first overall pick, which instead turned out to be University of Tampa defensive end John Matuszak (who would end up facing Philadelphia in the Super Bowl several years later). With the second pick, the Eagles selected USC tight end Charle Young.
Mike McCormack era (1973-1975)
Khayat was replaced by offensive guru Mike McCormick, for the 1973 season. Aided by the skills of Roman Gabriel and towering young receiver Harold Carmichael, they managed to infuse a bit of vitality into a previously moribund offense.
New general manager Jim Murray also began to add talent on the defensive side of the line, most notably through the addition of future Pro Bowl linebacker Bill Bergey in 1974. Overall, however, the team was still mired in mediocrity. McCormick was fired after a 4–10 1975 season.
Dick Vermeil era (1976–1982)
See also: Super Bowl XV
In 1976, Dick Vermeil was hired from UCLA to coach the Eagles, who had only one winning season from 1962 to 1975.[30]
Vermeil faced numerous obstacles as he attempted to rejuvenate a franchise that had not seriously contended in well over a decade. Despite the team's young talent and Gabriel's occasional flashes of brilliance, the Eagles finished 1976 with the same result—a 4–10 record—as in 1975. In 1977 the first seeds of hope begin to sprout. Rifle-armed quarterback Ron Jaworski was obtained by trade with the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for popular tight end Charlie Young. The defense, led by Bergey and defensive coordinator Marion Campbell, began earning a reputation as one of the hardest hitting in the league.
The franchise was established in 1933 as a replacement for the bankrupt Frankford Yellow Jackets, when a group led by Bert Bell secured the rights to an NFL franchise in Philadelphia. Bell, Chuck Bednarik, Bob Brown, Brian Dawkins, Reggie White, Steve Van Buren, Tommy McDonald, Greasy Neale, Pete Pihos, Sonny Jurgensen, and Norm Van Brocklin have been inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
The team has had an intense rivalry with the New York Giants. This rivalry is the oldest in the NFC East and is among the oldest in the NFL. It was ranked by NFL Network as the number one rivalry of all-time, Sports Illustrated ranks it as the fourth-best rivalry in the NFL,[4] and according to ESPN, it is one of the fiercest and most well-known rivalries in the American football community.[5] They also have a bitter rivalry with the Dallas Cowboys, which has become more high-profile since the 1960s, as well as a historic rivalry with the Washington Redskins. Their rivalry with the Pittsburgh Steelers is another bitter rivalry known as the battle of Pennsylvania, roughly dating back to 1933. It mostly arises from the two teams' statuses as being from opposite ends of the same state.[6]
The team consistently ranks among the best in the league in attendance and has sold out every game since the 1999 season.[7][8] In a Sports Illustrated poll of 321 NFL players, Eagles fans were selected as the most intimidating fans in the NFL
NFL in Philadelphia (1899–1931)
The Frankford Athletic Association was organized in May 1899 in the parlor of the Suburban Club. The cost of purchasing a share in the association was $10. However, there were also contributing memberships, ranging from $1 to $2.50, made available to the general public. The Association was a community-based non-profit organization of local residents and businesses. In keeping with its charter, which stated that "all profits shall be donated to charity", all of the team's excess income was donated to local charitable institutions. The original Frankford Athletic Association apparently disbanded prior to the 1909 football season. Several of the original players from the 1899 football team kept the team together, and they became known as Loyola Athletic Club. In keeping with Yellow Jackets tradition, they carried the "Frankford" name again in 1912, to become the Frankford Athletic Association.
In the early 1920s, the Frankford Athletic Association's Yellow Jackets gained the reputation as being one of the best independent football teams in the nation. In 1922, Frankford absorbed the Philadelphia City Champion team, the Union Quakers of Philadelphia. That year, Frankford captured the unofficial championship of Philadelphia. During the 1922 and 1923 seasons the Yellow Jackets compiled a 6–2–1 record against teams from the National Football League. This led to the Association being granted an NFL franchise in 1924, thus becoming the Frankford Yellow Jackets. Midway through the 1931 season, the Yellow Jackets went bankrupt and were forced to cease operations.[10]
Wray and Bell era (1933–1940)
After more than a year of searching for a suitable replacement, the NFL granted an expansion franchise to a syndicate headed by Bert Bell and Lud Wray and awarded them the franchise rights of the failed Yellow Jackets organization. The Bell-Wray group had to pay an entry fee of $3,500 (equal to $41,187 today) and assumed a total debt of $11,000 that was owed to three other NFL franchises.[11] Drawing inspiration from the Blue Eagle insignia of the National Recovery Administration—the centerpiece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal[11]—Bell and Wray named the new franchise the Philadelphia Eagles. Neither the Eagles nor the NFL officially regard the two franchises as the same, citing the aforementioned period of dormancy. Furthermore, almost no Yellow Jackets players were on the Eagles' first roster. The Eagles, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the now-defunct Cincinnati Reds, joined the NFL as expansion teams. Lud Wray became the Eagles first head coach after being convinced by Bell to take the position. The team originally planned to play their home games at Shibe Park, which was the home of the Philadelphia Athletics baseball club. When negotiations fell through the team managed to make a deal with the Athletics' crosstown rival, the Philadelphia Phillies to play at the Baker Bowl.
The Eagles played their first game on October 15, 1933, against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City. They lost the game 56-0.[12] The Eagles struggled over the course of their first decade, never winning more than four games. Their best finish was in their second season, 1934, when they finished tied for third in the East. For the most part, the Eagles' early rosters were composed of former Penn, Temple and Villanova players who played for a few years before going on to other things.
In 1935 Bell proposed an annual college draft to equalize talent across the league. The draft was a revolutionary concept in professional sports. Having teams select players in inverse order of their finish in the standings, a practice still followed today, strove to increase fan interest by guaranteeing that even the worst teams would have the opportunity for annual infusions of the best college talent.[13] Between 1927 (the year the NFL changed from a sprawling Midwestern-based association to a narrower, major-market league) and 1934, a triopoly of three teams (the Chicago Bears, New York Giants and Green Bay Packers) had won all but one title since 1927 (the lone exception being the Providence Steam Roller of 1928). By 1936 the club had suffered significant financial losses and was sold through a public auction. Bert Bell was the only bidder and became the sole owner of the team. Wray refused a reduction in his salary and left the team. Bell assumed the head coaching position and led the team to a record of 1-11, for last place in the league.
In 1940 the Eagles moved to Shibe Park (renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1954) and played their home games at the stadium through 1957, except for during the 1941 season, which was played at Municipal Stadium, where they had played from 1936 to 1939. To accommodate football at Shibe Park during the winter, management set up stands in right field, parallel to 20th Street. Some 20 feet high, these "east stands" had 22 rows of seats. The goalposts stood along the first base line and in left field. The uncovered east stands enlarged capacity of Shibe Park to over 39,000, but the Eagles rarely drew more than 25,000 to 30,000.[14] The team finished the 1937 season 2-8-1 and would continue to struggle over the next three seasons.
Greasy Neale era (1941–1950)
See also: 1947 NFL Championship Game, 1948 NFL Championship Game, and 1949 NFL Championship Game
In December 1940, Bell conciliated the sale of Art Rooney's Steelers to Alexis Thompson,[15] and then Rooney acquired half of Bell's interest in the Eagles.[16] In a series of events known as the Pennsylvania Polka,[15] Rooney and Bell exchanged their entire Eagles roster and their territorial rights in Philadelphia to Thompson for his entire Steelers roster and his rights in Pittsburgh.[17] Ostensibly, Rooney had provided assistance to Bell by rewarding him with a 20% commission on the sale of the Steelers.[18] Bell became the Steelers head coach and Rooney became the general manager.[19]
After assuming ownership, Thompson promptly hired Earle "Greasy" Neale as the team's head coach. In its first years under Neale, the team continued to struggle by finishing the 1941 season with a 2-8-1 record. The 1942 season showed no improvement as the team went 2-9.
"Steagles" (1943)
In 1943 when manpower shortages stemming from World War II made it impossible to fill the roster, the team merged with the Pittsburgh Steelers forming the "Phil-Pitt Eagles", known as the "Steagles." Greasy Neale coached the team along with Steelers head coach Walt Kiesling. The team finished the season with a 5–4–1 record. (The merger, never intended as a permanent arrangement, was dissolved at the end of the season.
In 1944, led by head coach Greasy Neale and running back Steve Van Buren, the Eagles had their first winning season in team history. After two more second-place finishes in 1945 and 1946, the team reached the NFL Championship game for the first time in 1947. Van Buren, Pete Pihos, and Bosh Pritchard fought valiantly, but the young team fell to the Chicago Cardinals 28–21 at Chicago's Comiskey Park.
NFL Champions (1948)
Undeterred, the young squad rebounded in 1948 and returned to the NFL Championship game. With home-field advantage (and a blinding snowstorm) on their side, the Eagles won their first NFL Championship against the Chicago Cardinals, by a score of 7–0. The only score of the game came in the fourth quarter when Steve Van Buren ran for 5 yard touchdown. Due to the severity of the weather, few fans were on hand to witness the joyous occasion.
NFL Champions (1949)
Before the start of the 1949 season,the team was sold by Thompson to a syndicate of 100 buyers, known as the "Happy Hundred", each of whom paid a fee of $3,000 for their share of the team. While the leader of the "Happy Hundred" was noted Philadelphia businessman James P. Clark, one unsung investor was Leonard Tose, a name that would eventually become very familiar to Eagles fans.[20]
The team returned to the NFL Championship game for the third consecutive year. The Eagles were favored by a touchdown,[21][22][23] and won 14–0 for their second consecutive shutout in the title game. Running back Steve Van Buren rushed for 196 yards on 31 carries for the Eagles and their defense held the Rams to just 21 yards on the ground
Chuck Bednarik was selected as the first overall pick in the 1949 NFL Draft. An All-American lineman/linebacker from the University of Pennsylvania, Bednarik would go on to become one of the greatest and most beloved players in Eagles history.
With the turn of the decade came another turn in team fortunes. In 1950 the Eagles were slated to open the season against the AAFC champion Cleveland Browns, who had just (along with the other AAFC franchises) joined the NFL. The Eagles were expected to make short work of the Browns, who at the time were widely considered the dominant team in a lesser league. However, the Browns lit up the Eagles' vaunted defense for 487 total yards, including 246 passing yards, in a 35–10 rout. The Eagles never really recovered, and finished 6–6.
McMillin, Millner, Trimble and Devore era (1951-1957)
Greasy Neale retired after the 1950 season and was replaced by Bo McMillin. Two games into the 1951 season, McMillin was forced to retire due to terminal stomach cancer. Wayne Millner finished out the season before being replaced by Jim Trimble.
While the remnants of the great 1940s teams managed to stay competitive for the first few years of the decade, and while younger players like Bobby Walston and Sonny Jurgensen occasionally provided infusions of talent, the team lacked the stuff of true greatness for most of the 1950s.
After the 1957 season, the Eagles moved from Connie Mack Stadium to Franklin Field at the University of Pennsylvania. Franklin Field would seat over 60,000 for the Eagles, whereas Connie Mack had a capacity of 39,000.[25] The stadium switched from grass to AstroTurf in 1969. It was the first NFL stadium to use artificial turf.
Buck Shaw era (1958-1960)
See also: 1960 NFL Championship Game
In 1958 the franchise took key steps to improve, hiring Buck Shaw as head coach and acquiring Norm Van Brocklin in a trade with the Los Angeles Rams. During the 1959 season the team showed real flashes of talent, and finished in second place in the Eastern Division. Former Eagles owner and co-founder Bert Bell, who at the time was the commissioner of the NFL, attended a game on October 11 at Franklin Field. The Eagles were facing the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team who Bell also used to own. The Eagles had box seats reserved for him but Bell refused them and purchased his own tickets to sit with the fans. During the fourth quarter of the game while sitting behind the end zone, he had suffered a heart attack and died later that day.
NFL Champions (1960)
1960 remains the most celebrated year in Eagles history. Shaw, Van Brocklin and Chuck Bednarik (each in his last season before retirement) led a team more notable for its grit than its talent (one observer later quipped that the team had "nothing but a championship") to its first division title since 1949. The team was aided by their two Pro Bowl receivers, WR Tommy McDonald (who would later pen a short autobiography titled "They Pay Me to Catch Footballs") and TE Pete Retzlaff. On December 26, 1960, one of the coldest days in recorded Philadelphia history, the Eagles faced Vince Lombardi's Green Bay Packers in the NFL title game and dealt the mighty Lombardi the sole championship game loss of his storied career. Bednarik lined up at center on offense and at linebacker on defense. Fittingly, the game ended as Bednarik tackled a struggling Jim Taylor and refused to allow him to stand until the last seconds had ticked away.[26]
Skorich, Kuharich, Williams and Khayat era (1961–1972)
Van Brocklin had come to Philadelphia and agreed to play through 1960 with the tacit understanding that, upon his retirement as a player, he would succeed Shaw as head coach. Ownership, however, opted to promote assistant coach Nick Skorich instead, and Van Brocklin quit the organization in a fit of pique, instead becoming head coach of the expansion Minnesota Vikings. Back up quarterback Sonny Jurgensen became the starter for the 1961 season. The team finished just a half-game behind the New York Giants for first place in the Eastern Conference standings with a 10–4 record. Despite the on-the-field success, however, the franchise was in turmoil.
The 1962 team was decimated by injury, and managed only three wins and were embarrassed at home in a 49–0 loss against the Packers. The off-field chaos would continue through 1963, as the remaining 65 shareholders out of the original Happy Hundred sold the team to Jerry Wolman, a 36-year-old millionaire Washington developer who outbid local bidders for the team, paying an unprecedented $5,505,000 for control of the club. In 1964 Wolman hired former Cardinals and Washington Redskins coach Joe Kuharich to a 15-year contract. Over the next five seasons the team failed to make the playoffs each year.
In 1969 Leonard Tose bought the Eagles from Wolman for $16,155,000[27] (equal to $110,372,954 today), then a record for a professional sports franchise. Tose's first official act was to fire Coach Joe Kuharich after a disappointing 24–41–1 record during his five-year reign. He followed this by naming former Eagles receiving great Pete Retzlaff as General Manager and Jerry Williams as coach.
With the merger of the NFL and AFL in 1970, the Eagles were placed in the NFC East Division with their archrivals the New York Giants, the Washington Redskins, and the Dallas Cowboys. Their heated rivalry with the Giants is the oldest of the NFC East rivalries, dating all the way back to 1933 and is often named as one of the best rivalries in the NFL.[28][29]
In 1971 the Eagles moved from Franklin Field to brand-new Veterans Stadium. In its first season, the “Vet” was widely acclaimed as a triumph of ultra-modern sports engineering, a consensus that would be short-lived. Equally short-lived was Williams' tenure as head coach. After a 3–10–1 record in 1970 and three consecutive blowout losses to Cincinnati, Dallas and San Francisco to open the 1971 season, Williams was fired and replaced by assistant coach Ed Khayat, a defensive lineman on the Eagles' 1960 NFL championship team. Williams and Khayat were hampered by Retzlaff's decision to trade longtime starting quarterback Norm Snead to the Minnesota Vikings in early 1971, leaving the Eagles a choice between journeyman Pete Liske and the raw Rick Arrington.
Khayat lost his first two games, but won six of the final nine in 1971 thanks to the exploits of the defense, led by All-Pro safety Bill Bradley, who led the NFL in interceptions (11) and interception return yardage (248).
The team regressed in 1972, and Khayat was released after the Eagles finished 2–11–1. The two wins (both on the road) proved to be surprises, however. Philadelphia beat the Kansas City Chiefs (which had the best record in the AFC a year before) 21–20 and the Houston Oilers 18–17 on six field goals by kicker Tom Dempsey. The latter game became known as the "Johnny Rodgers Bowl", because the loser would finish with the worst record in the league and obtain the first overall draft pick of 1973, which was then assumed to be Nebraska wingback Johnny Rodgers. The Oilers ultimately got the first overall pick, which instead turned out to be University of Tampa defensive end John Matuszak (who would end up facing Philadelphia in the Super Bowl several years later). With the second pick, the Eagles selected USC tight end Charle Young.
Mike McCormack era (1973-1975)
Khayat was replaced by offensive guru Mike McCormick, for the 1973 season. Aided by the skills of Roman Gabriel and towering young receiver Harold Carmichael, they managed to infuse a bit of vitality into a previously moribund offense.
New general manager Jim Murray also began to add talent on the defensive side of the line, most notably through the addition of future Pro Bowl linebacker Bill Bergey in 1974. Overall, however, the team was still mired in mediocrity. McCormick was fired after a 4–10 1975 season.
Dick Vermeil era (1976–1982)
See also: Super Bowl XV
In 1976, Dick Vermeil was hired from UCLA to coach the Eagles, who had only one winning season from 1962 to 1975.[30]
Vermeil faced numerous obstacles as he attempted to rejuvenate a franchise that had not seriously contended in well over a decade. Despite the team's young talent and Gabriel's occasional flashes of brilliance, the Eagles finished 1976 with the same result—a 4–10 record—as in 1975. In 1977 the first seeds of hope begin to sprout. Rifle-armed quarterback Ron Jaworski was obtained by trade with the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for popular tight end Charlie Young. The defense, led by Bergey and defensive coordinator Marion Campbell, began earning a reputation as one of the hardest hitting in the league.
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