Philadelphia Eagles
The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League as a member of the National Football Conference East division. The team plays its home games at Lincoln Financial Field in the South Philadelphia Sports Complex.
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. Since their formation, the Eagles have appeared in the playoffs 32 times, won 17 division titles, appeared in four pre-merger NFL Championship Games, winning three of them, and appeared in five Super Bowls, winning Super Bowls LII and LIX.
The Philadelphia Eagles rank among the best teams in the NFL for attendance and have sold out every home game continuously since the 1999 season.
The Eagles are owned by Jeffrey Lurie, who bought the team in 1994 for $185 million. In December 2024, the Eagles became one of the first teams in the NFL to sell an ownership stake to outside investors. The deal sold 8% of the franchise at a valuation of $8.3 billion.
History
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 also were 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 a 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. In spite of winning the NFL championship in 1926, midway through the 1931 season, the Yellow Jackets went bankrupt and were forced to cease operations.
Bell and Wray era (1933–1940)
After more than a year of searching for a suitable replacement for the Yellow Jackets in the lucrative Philadelphia market, the National Football League granted an expansion franchise to an ownership group headed by Bert Bell and Lud Wray, who were also awarded the liquidated assets of the defunct Yellow Jackets organization. The Bell–Wray group had to pay an entry fee of $3,500, or roughly US$67,000 in inflation-adjusted 2022 dollars and assumed a total debt of $11,000 the Yellow Jackets owed to three other NFL franchises. Drawing inspiration from the Blue Eagle logo of the National Recovery Administration, a centerpiece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal policies, Bell and Wray named their new franchise the Philadelphia Eagles. While it could seem as if the Yellow Jackets simply rebranded as the Eagles, both the Eagles organization and the NFL officially regard the teams as two separate entities. Not only was there no Philadelphia NFL team for a season and a half, but almost no players from the 1931 Yellow Jackets appeared on the Eagles' first roster.In the 1933 NFL season, the Eagles were one of three teams, along with the Pittsburgh Pirates and the now-defunct Cincinnati Reds, to join the NFL as expansion teams. Wray became the Eagles' first head coach after being persuaded to assume the position by Bell, his former teammate at Penn. The Eagles originally intended to play their home games at Shibe Park, which was the home of the Philadelphia Athletics professional baseball in Philadelphia. When negotiations for the use of Shibe Park fell through, however, the Eagles struck a deal with the Athletics' crosstown rival, the Philadelphia Phillies, to begin playing 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, and lost the game 56–0. The Eagles struggled over the course of their first decade, never winning more than four games in any of their first ten seasons. Their best finish was in 1934, the second season for the Eagles, when they tied for third in the East. The Eagles' early rosters largely consisted of former Penn, Temple, and Villanova players who played for the Eagles 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. Between 1927, when the NFL changed from a sprawling Midwestern-based association to a narrower, major-market league, and 1934, three teams, the Chicago Bears, New York Giants, and Green Bay Packers, won all but one title with the exception of the Providence Steam Roller, which won in 1928. By 1936, the Eagles suffered significant financial losses and were 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, last place in the league.
From 1936 to 1939, the Eagles played at Municipal Stadium in South Philadelphia. In 1940, Bell balked at a 66% rent increase plus 10% of the gate receipts proposed by the City of Philadelphia for the use of Municipal Stadium and signed a lease for Shibe Park, which was renamed Connie Mack Stadium in 1954. At Connie Mack Stadium, the Eagles were also able to play night games, since lights were installed at the stadium the year before. In the 1941 season, the Eagles played their home opener at Municipal Stadium, and then moved to Shibe Park. To accommodate football at Shibe Park during the winter, management erected stands in right field, parallel to 20th Street. Some 20 feet high, these east stands included 22 rows of seats. The goalposts stood along the first base line and in left field. The uncovered east stands enlarged the park's capacity to over 39,000, but the Eagles rarely drew more than 25,000 to 30,000. The Eagles finished the 1937 season 2–8–1 and continued to struggle over the next three seasons.
Thompson, Wolman and the Happy Hundred era (1941–1969)
In December 1940, Bell intervened to stop the sale of Art Rooney's Steelers to Alexis Thompson, and Rooney then acquired half of Bell's interest in the Eagles. In a series of events known as the Pennsylvania Polka, 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. Rooney provided assistance to Bell by rewarding him with a 20% commission on the sale of the Steelers. Bell became the Steelers' head coach and Rooney became the Steelers' general manager.Greasy Neale years (1941–1950)
After assuming ownership, Thompson promptly hired Greasy Neale as the team's head coach. During the first years under Neale, the Eagles' struggles continued, and they finished the 1941 season with a 2–8–1 record. In the 1942 season, there was no improvement as the team finished the season 2–9.Steagles (1943)
In 1943, with player shortages stemming from the U.S. entry engagement in World War II, it became difficult to fill the roster, and the team merged with the Steelers to form the "Phil-Pitt Combine", known as the Steagles. Greasy Neale continued to coach the team along with Steelers head coach Walt Kiesling. The team finished the 1943 season with a 5–4–1 record, and the merger, which was never intended to be a permanent arrangement, was dissolved at the season's end.In 1944, the Eagles, led by head coach Greasy Neale and running back Steve Van Buren, had their first winning season in team history. After two 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 lost to the Chicago Cardinals, 28–21 at Comiskey Park in Chicago.
NFL champions (1948)
Undeterred, the young team rebounded in 1948 to return 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 came in the fourth quarter when Steve Van Buren ran for a five-yard touchdown. Because of the severe weather, few fans witnessed the joyous occasion.Prior to the start of the 1949 season, the Eagles were sold by Thompson to a syndicate of 100 buyers, known as the "Happy Hundred", each of whom paid $3,000 for a share of the team. While the leader of the "Happy Hundred" was noted Philadelphia businessman James P. Clark, one unsung investor was Leonard Tose.
NFL champions (1949)
In 1949, the Eagles returned to the NFL Championship game for a third consecutive year. The Eagles were favored by a touchdown, and won 14–0 for their second consecutive title game shutout. 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.In 1950, the Eagles opened the season against the AAFC champion Cleveland Browns, who, along with two other AAFC franchises, had just joined the NFL. The Eagles were expected to make short work of the Browns, who 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 recovered from the loss and finished the 1950 season 6–6.
Following the 1950 season, Greasy Neale retired and was replaced by Bo McMillin. Two games into the 1951 season, McMillin was forced to retire following a diagnosis of 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 younger players like Bobby Walston and Sonny Jurgensen occasionally provided infusions of talent, the team lacked the total talent necessary for true greatness during 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 had a vastly expanded seating capacity for the Eagles. While Connie Mack Stadium had a capacity of 39,000, Franklin Field's capacity was 60,000. In 1969, the grass field at Franklin Field was replaced by AstroTurf, making Franklin Field the first NFL stadium to use artificial turf.