We’re in the heat of the summer and you know what that means… football is right around the corner. In fact, there are only 52 days left until the Eagles kick off their 2017 season at Washington on September 10. Training camp starts next week at the NovaCare Complex in South Philadelphia. The team will begin this season in the same way many have in the past, with higher expectations than last year. The Philadelphia fanbase seems to almost always have steep, often unreasonable, preseason expectations for their beloved Birds.
There’s an influx of new talent on the roster – the Eagles had a positive offseason by acquiring Torrey Smith, Alshon Jeffery, and LeGarrette Blount on top of a good draft class. However, the Eagles still have many weaknesses, namely their secondary which is ranked the worst in the league. It’s still too early to make clear predictions, but that doesn’t stop us. At the moment, I’m not sure they’re ready to be a first-time Super Bowl champion. I don’t want them to finish 7-9 again. I get the feeling that they will be either really GOOD, or really BAD. So, in honor of my hazy conjecture, let’s take a look back to the longest winning and losing streaks in franchise history.
The Eagles longest winning streak in a season is 9 games, which they have done twice. They first accomplished this feat in their 1960 Championship winning season. The Eagles, coached by Buck Shaw and led by Hall of Famers Norm Van Brocklin, Tommy McDonald, and Chuck Bednarik, lost the first game of the season to Paul Brown’s Cleveland Browns, but rebounded in week 2 with a 27-25 victory at Dallas. The team would remain undefeated until a week 11 defeat at Pittsburgh. They finished with a 10-2 record, which placed them atop the East Division and NFL. In 1960, there was only a single playoff game, the championship between the best team from the West against the best of the East. The big game was played at noon on the Monday after Christmas at Franklin Field in front of a crowd of 67,000. Despite the best efforts of QB Bart Starr and HB Jim Taylor, Bednarik and the Eagles D held on against the Green Bay attack, winning 17-13 thanks to a late game rush from Ted Dean. In what many believe to be the greatest game in Eagles history, the team celebrated their third and last Championship in front of their home fans. Shaw and Van Brocklin ended their careers as champions, delivering the great Vince Lombardi his only career postseason loss.
The team most recently won 9 games in a row in 2003. Andy Reid’s Eagles began the season with something to prove, they had lost in the conference championship in both of the previous two seasons. However, the 2003 season got off to a rough start. Big Red’s team had a chance at revenge against the dreaded champs, Jon Gruden’s Buccaneers, who had killed the Eagles’ title dreams in the final football game at Veterans Stadium. In the first regular season game at Lincoln Financial Field, the Eagles were shutout by Tampa Bay 17-0. Not the best start to a new era. As the season progressed, the team eventually found a winning gear, going undefeated from week 7 to week 15. McNabb, Westbrook, and Correll Buckhalter fit well in Reid’s west coast scheme while Jim Johnson and his blitzing defense bewildered opposing quarterbacks. They finished 12-4, matching their 2002 record. The Eagles squeaked by the Packers in the Divisional Round, winning 20-17 on a David Akers overtime field goal; made possible by the infamous “4th and 26” play. But, next week, much to the heartbreak of Philly fans, they would lose embarrassingly 14-3 to John Fox, Jake Delhomme and the Carolina Panthers. For the third year in a row the Eagles had lost in the NFC Championship, Super Bowl dreams crushed again.
The longest losing streak in franchise history stands at 14 games and stretches over two seasons, 1936 and 1937. The Eagles were a comically bad football team during their first decade (Only twice winning more than 2 games from 1933 to 1942). 1936 started out well as the Eagles beat the Giants in week 1. However, they would not score another touchdown until week 7, and would not win another game until week 6 of the next season! Click here to read a hilarious earlier entry from this site about these two pitiful years in our team’s history. The ‘36 season was doomed from the start as soon as the first selection of the first NFL draft, Jay Berwanger (also the first Heisman Trophy winner), rejected first-year Eagles owner and coach Bert Bell’s offer in favor of business pursuits. Bell never found success in running a team, but later became the league commissioner. He is notable for pushing to establish the system of drafting players which is used in professional sports leagues today. During these early years, the Eagles early rosters lacked talent and capable offensive lineman. Fortunately, they would see success in their second decade, winning two NFL Championships during the 1940s after Greasy Neale took over the reigns from Bell.
We’ll see how it goes this fall. Taking a rough glance at their schedule, it doesn’t exactly look easy. The Eagles will be challenged by the Chiefs, Seahawks, Raiders, and 6 games against the NFC East that don’t look so easy; the division was recently ranked the most competitive in the NFL. Based off of these matchups, I’ve penciled them down to go 7-9 again… As we do every year around this time, let’s hope against this mediocrity and for a great season more closely resembling 1960 or 2003.
