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The Philadelphia Eagles is an American football club in the National Football League, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Eagles, along with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Reds, joined the NFL as 1933 expansion teams. The team is regarded as a second incarnation of the defunct NFL team Frankford Yellow Jackets, who folded two years earlier due to financial hardships brought on by the Great Depression.

Home field: Lincoln Financial Field (2003-Present),

Previous home fields:

Baker Bowl (1933-1935)

Municipal (later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium) (1936-1939)

Connie Mack Stadium (previously Shibe Park) (1940-1957)

Franklin Field (1958-1970)

Veterans Stadium (1971-2002)

Team colors: Midnight Green, Silver, Black, and White.

Helmet design: White wings on a green helmet.

Mascot: Swoop.

Unofficial Nickname(s): "The Birds," "The Iggles"

Franchise history

See History of the Philadelphia Eagles.

The Reid-surgent Eagles

Resurgence would come under the leadership of head coach Andy Reid and quarterback Donovan McNabb, the first player Reid ever drafted. A virtual unknown as of his selection as head coach, Reid's appointment was met with considerable skepticism in Philadelphia. The choice proved wise, however: with Reid leading the way and McNabb emerging as one of the game's great players, the Eagles won their first Eastern Division title since 1988 in 2001, a title that they have yet to relinquish. That year, the team also reached the first of (to date) four consecutive NFC title games.

The 2003 team lost its first two games, both at home and away; but then proceeded to become the first team ever to make the playoffs after doing this in a non-strike year. In their opening game of the 2003 season the Eagles were shut out 17-0 by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the first regular-season game ever played at Lincoln Financial Field; by reaching the conference championship game in the same year as this defeat, they became the first team in modern history to get that far in the postseason after having been shut out at home in its first game. They achieved both of the above despite getting only five touchdown catches all year from their wide receivers, which tied the league low since the regular-season schedule was lengthened to its present 16 games in 1978 (this record would be broken in 2004 when the New York Giants' wide receivers caught only two touchdown passes). The Eagle receivers even went through both September and October without a TD catch — the last time an NFL team had done that was in 1945.

No doubt with the latter two facts in mind, the Eagles actively pursued — and ultimately got to trade for — premier wide receiver Terrell Owens, whom the team acquired in a controversial three-way deal involving themselves, the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers, on March 16, 2004.

Superbowl Run

The 2004 season began with a bang as Owens caught three touchdown passes from McNabb in their season opener against the New York Giants. Owens would end up with exactly 1,200 receiving yards and 14 touchdown receptions, although his season ended prematurely with an ankle injury on December 19,2004 against the Dallas Cowboys. Their 12-7 victory in this game gave them homefield advantage throughout the playoffs (exclusive of the Super Bowl) for the third year in a row, the team having previously clinched their fourth straight NFC East division title, their fifth consecutive postseason appearance, and a first-round bye in the playoffs. Their final two regular-season games thus rendered meaningless, the Eagles sat out most of their first-string players in these games and lost them both, yet still finished with a 13-3 record, their best 16-game season ever. McNabb had his finest season to date, passing for 3,875 yards and 31 touchdowns, throwing only eight interceptions. This made him the first quarterback in NFL history to throw 30 or more TD passes and fewer than 10 interceptions in a given season.

The Eagles' futility in Conference Championship games had become notorious. In 2001, the Eagles had fallen in the NFC Championship Game against the Rams in St. Louis, 29-24. In 2002, the Eagles hosted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Veterans Stadium and were widely viewed as the overwhelming favorites - this view no doubt accentuated by the expected emotional boost that many anticipated would power the team, given that the game was to be the last at "the Vet." After a promising start, however, the game slipped away, and the ensuing 27-10 loss devastated a fan base that had already become too accustomed to disappointment. In 2003, a banged-up Eagles squad managed to overcome numerous injuries, particularly to its defense, to reach the NFC Championship once more, only to lose to the visiting Carolina Panthers at Lincoln Financial Field by a score of 14-3. The indignity of the second consecutive home upset in an NFC Championship game was compounded by the subsequent revelation that numerous members of the Panthers squad had been, or were strongly suspected of having been, illegal steroid abusers.

4th Time's A Charm

On January 23, 2005, the Eagles reached an unprecedented (in the salary cap era of the NFL) fourth consecutive conference championship game. At long last, the Eagles justified the hopes of their long-suffering fan base, defeating Michael Vick's much-hyped Atlanta Falcons, 27-10, sending them to their first Super Bowl in 24 years. The victory sent the city of Philadelphia into wild celebrations. Alas, as has often been the case in Philadelphia sports, this ecstasy was short-lived. Two weeks later, the Eagles were defeated by the New England Patriots, 24-21, in Super Bowl XXXIX.

A Step Back?

The 2005 season began immediately erratic with a loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football, in which Donovan McNabb suffered a chest bruise. In addition, Eagles linebacker Jeremiah Trotter was ejected prior to kick-off for getting involved in an altercation with Falcons cornerback Kevin Mathis. In the Week 2 home-opener in Philadelphia, the Eagles defeated the San Francisco 49ers in a rout; however, Donovan McNabb was diagnosed with a sports-hernia following the game. Weeks 3 through 4 saw the Eagles struggle somewhat but still manage to defeat the Oakland Raiders and mount a 17-point comeback to defeat the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium. In week 5, the Eagles were manhandled by the Dallas Cowboys in Dallas, losing by 23 points. Following a bye week, the Eagles pulled off a miracle win against the San Diego Chargers when cornerback Matt Ware returned a blocked field-goal for a touchdown in the fourth quarter. Fans hoped the play would “wake up” the Eagles and save the season similar to Brian Westbrook's fourth quarter punt return against the New York Giants in 2003. However, in week 8, the Eagles were unable to stop the running and passing attack of the Denver Broncos. The Eagles gained only 4 yards in the first quarter and allowed themselves to fall behind 28-0. The Eagles got within 28-21 thanks to 3 third quarter touchdown passes by McNabb, but the potential game-tying drive ended in an interception, and the Eagles never came close to tying the game again, losing 49-21.

Week after week, Andy Reid has come under criticism for the Eagles lack of dedication to a running game and overworking an injured Donovan McNabb, who is on pace to break the records for all-time passing attempts and completions. The Eagles have also allowed themselves to get behind in the first quarters of games, only to end up fighting from behind in the remaining quarters. Some analysts speculate the Eagles problems are due to not finding replacements for former defensive linemen Corey Simon and Derrick Burgess, poor pass rush, poor special teams, and the contract disputes with Brian Westbrook and Terrell Owens, along with Owens now weekly controversies. They have also been hindered by injuries to McNabb, Corell Buckhalter, Todd Pinkston, Lito Sheppard, Dirk Johnson, and David Akers.

On November 4th 2005, on ESPN, Terrell Owens criticized the Eagles front office for not recognizing his 100th touchdown catch. He also agreed with Michael Irvin's statement that the Eagles would be undefeated had Brett Favre been the quarterback. Owens apologized the next day to the front office (but not to McNabb) and was suspended indefinitely. There were also reports that he got into a fist fight with Hugh Douglas and challenged other players in the locker room which contributed to his suspension. At Andy Reid's press conference after the Washington loss, he announced T.O. would no longer be playing this year for the Eagles due to conduct detrimental to the team. The Eagles would proceed to lose the next three games to the Redskins, Cowboys, and Giants, not making the playoffs for the first time since 1999.

On November 21st Donovan McNabb announced he would undergo surgery for his sports hernia. Former Detroit quarterback Mike McMahon is currently starting for the Eagles. The Eagles will finish the season without at least eight of their projected starters heading into the season, including Pinkston, Hank Fraley, Dirk Johnson, and Pro Bowlers McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Sheppard, Tra Thomas, and the exiled Owens. After expectations of a return to the Super Bowl, it appears the Eagles will have to re-tool, if not rebuild in the off season, to make another run for the Lombardi Trophy.

Season-by-season

*=Current Standing

Fan Behavior

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Eagles fans' devotion to the Eagles is reflected by team ticket sales: games are invariably sold-out, and there is a 60,000-member waiting list for season tickets.

Poor judgment and alcohol have occasionally led some Eagles fans to transgress the boundaries of civilized behavior. Some such behavior is familiar to many who have attended professional sporting events virtually anywhere in the world, but Eagles fans have had the misfortune to misbehave in numerous high profile moments, many on national television. For this reason, Eagles fans have a reputation in many quarters as being rowdy, or even dangerous. Eagles fans "are often considered to be among the most passionate in professional sports" .

The most (in)famous example of fan impropriety at Eagles games is the so-called "Santa Claus Incident," on December 15, 1968, at Franklin Field, in which a few angry fans, furious at the conclusion of yet another wasted season under head coach Joe Kuharich (including losing their first 11 games, then winning the next two, preventing the team from getting the first pick in the next year's draft, O.J. Simpson), booed and threw snowballs at a man dressed as Santa Claus during the halftime show. The original Santa had been drunk and unable to perform, leading the club to draft skinny 20 year-old Frank Olivo from the stands as an ad hoc replacement.

As Olivo recounts, a handful of fans threw snowballs at him after he reached the end zone, shouting that he made a poor Santa. Olivo, in turn, laughed the snowballs off and pointed to the few culprits, instructing them that they'd have empty stockings that Christmas. This led to more snowballs. Subsequently, Howard Cosell exaggerated the tale, and a legend was born.

Cosell's grandstanding aside, exaggeration is unnecessary, there being many real examples that serve to support such an argument. Recent examples include:

• A 1997 Monday Night Football game against the San Francisco 49ers in which, infuriated by a series of calls by the officials and poor play by the Eagles, fans engaged in a number of highly visible, large-scale brawls on national television. In the last quarter, one fan fired a flare gun across the stadium into empty seats in the 700 level. Fans entering home Eagles games have been subject to pat-down searches at entry by stadium security ever since.

• A contingent of Eagles fans traveled to the 1999 NFL Draft in New York for the sole purpose of jeering the Eagles selecting anyone other than Heisman Trophy winning running back Ricky Williams. Local radio hosts had recruited the boorishly behaving crew to protest the selection, which turned out to be future Pro-Bowl quarterback Donovan McNabb. McNabb stayed composed during the incident, and the thirty or so fans who booed him were subsequently derided as the "Dirty Thirty," while the radio hosts in question were widely criticized for their roles as instigators. McNabb has since become one of Philadelphia's most beloved sports icons.

• During a 1999 game against the hated Dallas Cowboys, Cowboys wide receiver (and bete noire of Eagle fans) Michael Irvin was knocked unconscious when his head was driven into Philadelphia's hard turf-covered cement field after a catch. As Irvin lay prostrate and immobile on the turf, some Eagles fans cheered the injury. Irvin was ultimately diagnosed with a broken neck, and the injury ended his career.

Acts of violence by Eagles fans against fans of visiting teams, combined with ongoing difficulties relating to public drunkenness, prompted Philadelphia municipal judge Seamus McCaffrey and the Philadelphia Police Department to establish a small, in-stadium courtroom at the Vet in 1997. Additionally, plainclothes officers, dressed in the colors of the visiting team, were dispatched to sit in sections known as being dangerous to opposing fans, most such sections being located in the Vet's notorious "700 Level" at the top of the stadium. The success of the program was widely noted and has continued to the present day (Lincoln Financial Field includes a built-in prison facility and courtroom for such purposes). Eagle fans caught by such sting operations are arrested, charged and taken to the courtroom, where McCaffrey usually sits in judgment. Such efforts have made the inside of the stadium much safer for opposing fans than was previously the case.

Fight Song

Eagles fans will sing the team fight song with little to no provocation, but always sing it following an Eagles touchdown. The lyrics are as follows:

Fly, Eagles Fly, on the road to victory!

(FIGHT!!, FIGHT!!, FIGHT!!)

Fight, Eagles Fight, score a touchdown one-two-three!

(ONE!!, TWO!!, THREE!!)

Hit'em low, hit'em high, and watch our Eagles fly!

Fly, Eagles Fly, on the road to victory!

E-A-G-L-E-S, EAGLES!

The fight song was reputedly the creation of former owner Jerry Wolman's daughter, who, impressed by the "war chant" of the rival Washington Redskins, implored her father to play an Eagle equivalent during Eagles games. With the eventual sale of the team and move to Veterans Stadium, the fight song was largely forgotten, although a few die-hards could be heard singing the lyrics on special occasions. That it was ultimately brought back to such popular acclaim is testament to the vision of Jeffrey Lurie, whose regime reinstated the practice of playing the song over stadium loudspeakers (with a modern addition of projecting the lyrics on the scoreboard) after Eagle touchdowns. The song is now ubiquitous wherever Eagle fans are found. The song has been heard at Philadelphia Phillies, Philadelphia Flyers, and Philadelphia 76ers games, and even at the Philadelphia Live 8 concert prior to the show.

Interestingly, the Lurie revival was accompanied by a slight adjustment of the lyrics. Originally, the second line of the song was:

"Fight, Green and White, score a touchdown, one-two-three!"

With Lurie's modernization of team uniforms, however, and the new emphasis on Black and Silver, the mention of the traditional colors was omitted. Few noticed.

Broadcasters

Bill Campbell was the longtime radio voice of the Eagles, and broadcast their 1960 NFL Championship. Merrill Reese has been the radio voice of the Eagles since 1977. His smooth, occasionally stentorian baritone is instantly recognizable as the voice behind numerous NFL Films productions and television commercials. Reese is currently complemented by the color commentary of former Eagle wide receiver Mike Quick, perhaps best noted for his unique turns of phrase (e.g., "McNABB-ulous!"). Before Quick, Reese's sidekick was Stan Walters, a former Eagles offensive lineman.

Eagles games are heard in the greater Philadelphia area on 94-1 Free FM WYSP. Fairly unique among football fans, many Eagles fans so prefer Reese's radio broadcasts of the game that they mute their televisions and watch the game while listening to the WYSP radio broadcasts of the game.

Reese's January, 2005 play-by-play broadcast of the final minute of the Eagles' defeat of the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game, which sent the Eagles to the 2005 Super Bowl, is among the most frequently replayed sports radio broadcast segments of the past decade.

Players of note

Current players

Pro Football Hall of Famers

• Chuck Bednarik (1967) - 1949-1962
• Bert Bell (1963) - 1933-1940
• Bob Brown (NFL) (2004) - 1964-1968
• Mike Ditka (1988) - 1967-1968
• Sonny Jurgensen (1983) - 1957-1963
• Ollie Matson (1972) 1964-1966
• Tommy McDonald (1998) - 1957-1963
• Earle "Greasy" Neale (1969) - 1941-1950
• Pete Pihos (1970) - 1947-1955
• Jim Ringo (1981) - 1964-1967
• Norm Van Brocklin (1971) - 1958-1960
• Steve Van Buren (1965) - 1944-1951
• Alex Wociechowicz (1968) - 1946-1950

Retired numbers

• 15 Steve Van Buren
• 40 Tom Brookshier
• 44 Pete Retzlaff
• 60 Chuck Bednarik
• 70 Al Wistert
• 92 Reggie White
• 99 Jerome Brown

Eagles Honor Roll

In 1987, the Eagles Honor Roll was established. Each Eagle player who had by then been elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame was among the inaugural induction class.

• 60 Chuck Bednarik, C-LB, 1949-62, inducted 1987
• Bert Bell, founder-owner, 1933-40, inducted 1987
• 17 Harold Carmichael, WR, 1971-83, inducted 1987
• 56 Bill Hewitt, TE-DE, 1936-39 and 1943, inducted 1987
• 9 Sonny Jurgensen, QB, 1957-63, inducted 1987
• 31 Wilbert Montgomery, RB, 1977-84, inducted 1987
• Earle "Greasy" Neale, Head Coach, 1941-50, inducted 1987
• 35 Pete Pihos, TE-DE, 1947-55, inducted 1987
• 33 Ollie Matson, RB, 1964-66, inducted 1987
• 54 Jim Ringo, C, 1964-67, inducted 1987
• 11 Norm Van Brocklin, QB, 1958-60, inducted 1987
• 15 Steve Van Buren, RB-S, 1944-51, inducted 1987
• 53 Alex Wojciehowicz, C-DT, 1946-50, inducted 1987
• 66 Bill Bergey, LB, 1974-80, inducted 1988
• 25 Tommy McDonald, RB, 1957-63, inducted 1988
• 40 Tom Brookshier, CB, 1954-61, inducted 1989
• 44 Pete Retzlaff, TE, 1956-66, inducted 1989
• 22 Timmy Brown, RB, 1960-67, inducted 1990
• 76 Jerry Sisemore, OT, 1973-84, inducted 1991
• 75 Stan Walters, OT, 1975-83, inducted 1991
• 7 Ron Jaworski, QB, 1977-86, inducted 1992
• 28 Bill Bradley, S-P, 1969-76, inducted 1993
• Dick Vermeil, Head Coach, 1976-82, inducted 1994
• Jim Gallagher, team executive, 1949-95, inducted 1995
• 82 Mike Quick, WR, 1982-90, inducted 1995
• 99 Jerome Brown, DE, 1987-91, inducted 1996
• Otho Davis, head trainer, 1973-95, inducted 1999
• 92 Reggie White, DE, 1987-92, inducted 2005

Despite having his number 70 retired, Al Wistert has not been inducted into the Eagles Honor Roll.

Not to be forgotten

• 1 Tony Franklin, K
• 8 Paul McFadden, K
• 9 Jim McMahon, QB
• 12 Randall Cunningham, QB
• 20 Andre Waters, S
• 21 Eric Allen, CB
• 21 Bobby Taylor, CB
• 22 Duce Staley, RB
• 23 Troy Vincent, CB
• 29 Harold Jackson, WR
• 32 Ricky Watters, RB
• 41 Keith Byars, RB
• 43 Roynell Young, S
• 46 Herman Edwards, CB
• 48 Wes Hopkins, S
• 51 William Thomas, LB
• 53 Bill Romanowski, LB
• 53 Hugh Douglas, DE
• 56 Byron Evans, LB
• 59 Seth Joyner, LB
• 69 Woody Peoples, G
• 76 Bob Brown OT
• 78 Carl Hairston, DT
• 80 Cris Carter, WR
• 80 Irving Fryar, WR
• 86 Fred Barnett, WR
• 87 Claude Humphrey, DE
• 88 John Spagnola, TE
• 90 Mike Golic, DT
• 90 Corey Simon, DT
• 95 John Bunting, LB
• 95 William Fuller, DE
• 96 Clyde Simmons, DE

Head coaches

• Andy Reid (1999- )
• Ray Rhodes (1995-1998)
• Rich Kotite (1991-1994)
• Buddy Ryan (1986-1990)
• Marion Campbell (1983-1985)
• Dick Vermeil (1976-1982)
• Mike McCormack (1973-1975)
• Ed Khayat (1971-1972)
• Jerry Williams (1969-1971)
• Joe Kuharich (1964-1968)
• Nick Skorich (1961-1963)
• Buck Shaw (1958-1960)
• Hugh Devore (1956-1957)
• Jim Trimble (1952-1956)
• Wayne Millner (1951)
• Alvin McMillan (1951)
• Earl "Greasy" Neale (1941-1950)
• Bert Bell (1936-1940)
• Lud Wray (1933-1935)

External links

• Philadelphia Eagles official web site
• Philadelphia Eagles news and opinion sources
• The EagleMobile website

• National Football League teams
• Philadelphia Eagles
• Philadelphia sports