The Philadelphia Eagles is a professional gridiron football team based on the state bearing the same name. They are affiliated to the National Football Conference, a division of the NFL. To this date, The Eagles have earned three NFL championships in the years 1948, 1949, and 1960. They also have won the Super Bowl with a recent victory in last year’s season. The Eagles were founded in 1933. It was a full rebrand and revamp from the remains of the Frankford Yellow Jackets when all the assets of that team were liquidated and sold to a syndicate of Philadelphia businessmen.
The Bumps in the Sky for the Eagles
As it happens with many new teams, the Eagles struggled a lot in their early years. They barely managed winning matches in their first ten seasons. All that changed when management hired head coach Earle Neale in 1941, and he got to work to turn around the performance of the team and make it competitive. Coach Neale if often credited with some of the best line-ups for the team. Under his guidance, Steve Van Buren became into the superstar that led the Eagles into their first NFL final in 1947 and subsequent winning titles in 1948 and 1949.
The team fell on hard times again after their two-year winning streak. They spent most of the 50s in the bottom of the classification of the league. By 1960 the Eagles, with the help of Norm Van Brocklin as their lead quarterback, Tommy McDonald as the diminutive flanker, and Chuck Bednarik on defense, they started to turn the tide by bringing home the third NFL championship by winning to the Green Bay Packers. While many believed that the team was aiming at a big comeback, this was a one-shot on a tenure that saw them go without any significant victories for almost 18 seasons.
Emotion to Bring Victories
By 1976 the head coach Dick Vermeil came in to turn the tables yet again. The man was known for having an emotional coaching style that energized the Eagles and connected with the fans a well. The results were bright as day with the team scoring four straight playoff spots from 1978 to 1981. The team duo of Ron Jaworski as the quarterback and Harold Carmichael as receiver worked the magic in those days mainly because of the imposing presence of the receiver, who measured 6 feet by 8 inches tall, making him one of the biggest and broadest players ever to grace the field in that era. The team finally managed to reach the coveted Super Bowl for the first time in 1981, but they lost the game to the Oakland Raiders.
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In 1999 the team changed their approach yet again by hiring coach Andy Reid, who immediately drafted Donovan McNabb as a quarterback. The duo would guide the Eagles to eight playoffs in the span of ten years from their second season in Philadelphia. They also managed five NFC championship games and a Super Bowl game in 2005 but no victories at all. Both the coach and the leading player had a troublesome relationship at all times until McNabb was traded in 2010. Michael Vick took over as the Eagles’ main quarterback and managed to score a win for a division title.
