The History of the Philadelphia Eagles begins when the franchise was founded in 1933. Since the team's establishment, the Eagles have appeared in five Super Bowls, losing their first two appearances, Super Bowl XV (1981) and XXXIX (2005) as well as their fourth, Super Bowl LVII (2022), and winning their third, Super Bowl LII (2017), and fifth, Super Bowl LIX (2024). The Eagles have won three out of the four NFL championships (won pre-1966, before the AFL–NFL merger) that they have appeared in, with the first three appearances being sequential.
The early years of the Eagles history from 1933 to 1939 were influenced by its owner and coach, Bert Bell. After Bell sold the team to Alexis Thompson in 1940, the second era of the Eagles was largely directed by their coach and future Hall of Famer, Greasy Neale.
Beginnings (1933–1943)
Formation and early years In 1931, Philadelphia's NFL franchise, the Frankford Yellow Jackets, NFL champions of 1926, went bankrupt and ceased operations midway through the season. After more than a year searching for a suitable replacement, the NFL granted an expansion franchise to a syndicate headed by former University of Pennsylvania teammates Lud Wray and Bert Bell.
In exchange for an entry fee of $2,500 ($51,570 in 2024), the Bell-Wray group was awarded the assets of the failed Yellow Jackets organization. Inspired by the National Recovery Act's "Blue Eagle" symbol, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, they named the new team the Philadelphia Eagles. Bell became president and general manager, while Wray was appointed head coach. Although this makes it appear that the Yellow Jackets sat out the 1932 season and returned in 1933 as the Eagles, this is not the case. The Eagles do not claim the Yellow Jackets' history as their own, and the NFL officially regard the two franchises as separate, citing the aforementioned period of dormancy. The Eagles simply inherited the NFL rights to the Philadelphia area. Further, Wray and Bell when assembled an almost entirely new team, only a single player (Art Koeninger) came from the 1931 Yellow Jackets.
The new team played its first game on October 15, 1933, against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City, which they lost 56-0. The Eagles mainly struggled over the course of their first decade. With rosters made up mostly of former Penn, Temple, and Villanova players who only put in a few years before getting on with their lives, the Eagles never won more than four games in their first ten seasons.
In 1935, Bell proposed an annual college draft to equalize talent across a league that had been dominated by the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers and New York Giants. Between 1927 through 1934, the Bears, Packers and Giants had won all but one title (the lone exception being the Providence Steam Roller of 1928). The draft was a revolutionary concept in professional sports, in which 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 all the teams will have the opportunity for the best college talent.
Sole owner and coach Bell (1936–1939) Having finished last in the standings, the Eagles had the first pick in the 1936 draft, an opportunity they used to select the University of Chicago's Heisman Trophy-winning back, Jay Berwanger. They then traded his rights to the Chicago Bears. However, Berwanger had no interest in playing professional football and elected to go to medical school instead.
The Eagles' first major recruiting success would come in 1939, with the signing of TCU's All-American quarterback, Davey O'Brien; O'Brien proceeded to shatter numerous existing single-season NFL passing records in his rookie season. That year, the Eagles participated in the first televised football game, against the football Brooklyn Dodgers, at Ebbets Field in a 23-14 loss.
Steelers and Eagles move (1940–1942) In 1940, the team moved from Philadelphia Municipal Stadium to Shibe Park. Wray sold his half-interest in the team to Art Rooney, who had just sold the Pittsburgh Steelers to Alexis Thompson. Soon thereafter, Bell/Rooney and Thompson swapped franchises, but not teams. In a move known as the "Pennsylvania Polka," Bell/Rooney's entire Eagles' corporate organization, including most of the players, moved to Pittsburgh, while Thompson's team (briefly renamed the Iron Men) moved to Philadelphia, leaving only the team nicknames in their original cities (for instance, the Steelers' corporate name remained "Philadelphia Football Club, Inc." until 1945). Since NFL franchises are territorial rights distinct from individual corporate entities, the NFL does not consider this a franchise move and considers the Eagles as a single unbroken entity from 1933. After assuming ownership, Thompson promptly hired Greasy Neale as the team's head coach.
The Steagles (1943) In 1943, shortages of players occurred due to many players being recruited to join the war effort in World War II. To address the shortage of players, the Eagles temporarily merged with the Pittsburgh Steelers. This created a team unofficially known as, "The Steagles". In the lone year of the merger, the Steagles went 5-4-1. The merger was then dissolved after the season ended.
Early success (1944–1949) In 1944, the Eagles selected Hall of Fame running back Steve Van Buren. Led by Van Buren and Neale, the Eagles became a competitor for the first time. They had their first winning season as a separate team in 1944. After two more second-place finishes (in 1945 and 1946), the Eagles reached the NFL title game for the first time in 1947. However, the team fell to the Chicago Cardinals 28–21 at Chicago's Comiskey Park. The Eagles returned to face the Cardinals once more in the 1948 championship where they won 7–0. Then the Eagles returned to the NFL championship game for the third consecutive year and won against the Los Angeles Rams 14–0. In 1948, the Eagles won 3 of 8 games with a score of 45–0, and all in a 36-day span.
In Thompson's final draft, 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. The 1949 season also saw the sale of the team 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 other investor was Leonard Tose, who then became the owner.
Flip-flopping fortunes and the Van Brocklin era (1950–1959) With the turn of the decade came another turn in team fortunes. The Eagles were slated to open the 1950 season against the AAFC champion Cleveland Browns, who had just joined the NFL. The Eagles were expected to make short work of the Browns, who were widely reckoned at the time as 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 recovered, and they finished 6–6.
Neale retired after the season and was replaced by Bo McMillin. Two games into the 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 talent, the team was mediocre for most of the 1950s. The Eagles considered trying to purchase Temple Stadium in 1952 when the team was unhappy with their lease at Shibe Park. Temple University claimed the property to have been appraised for $1 million and said they were uninterested in selling.Didinger; with Lyons, p. 200. In 1958, however, 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. That year also saw the team move from Connie Mack Stadium (formerly Shibe Park) to Franklin Field, in which attendance doubled. The 1959 squad finished in second place in the Eastern Division that year.
From champions to celler dwellers (1960–1969)
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. Poetically, the game ended as Bednarik tackled a struggling Jim Taylor and refused to allow him to stand until the last seconds had ticked away.NFL Flashback, "You can get up now, Taylor. This fucking game's over.": Chuck Bednarik Retrieved July 11, 2012.
Bedlam in Philadelphia (1961–1969)
In 1961, the Eagles 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-field success, the franchise was in turmoil; 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 Nick Skorich instead, and Van Brocklin quit the organization in annoyance, instead becoming head coach of the new Minnesota Vikings. In 1962, the team was decimated by injury, managed only three wins and were blown out at home 49–0 by 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 million for control of the club. In 1964, Wolman hired former Cardinals and Washington Redskins coach Joe Kuharich to a 15-year contract.