Rank all four Eagles league runner-ups

[74_75_78_79_]

1947, 1980, 2004, and 2022 are the ones, of course, to shuffle up.

Four City of Brotherly Love teams from four different eras who each came up just short.

My personal, JMHO, 4-thru-1 ranking of these four just so happens to be in chronological order from past up to present.

The '47 installment, to me, was just plain 'good' (okay, maybe a little better). Like the Packers thirteen years later, who also finished at 8-4, they weren't "ready" just yet but just so happened to be in a division with no team good enough to get in their way to the League Championship Game. Just like the Browns, 2nd-place in the Eastern, were better than Green Bay in '60 - the Bears, 2nd-place in the Western, were better than the Eagles in '47.

I'd love to place the '80 team higher, #1 perhaps, for nostalgic sentimental reasons. Vermeil definitely did the better coaching job with his team than Neale/Reid/Sirianni did with each of theirs. They were the hard-working, blue-collar, lunch-pail-to-work overachieving team.

But 2004, overall, seemed to have that extra gear (or maybe it was just a 'half'-gear; no, not by much) with 2022 being even better thus the best of the quartet! Yes, I thought SF would beat them going into that NFCC. And if the Birds get by them anyway, then Bengals beat them in the SB if they'd be their opponent. But that was just a case of me thinking that each of the two were even better than Siranni's bunch (what did I know anyway). To me, '22 was more championship-win-capable for its era than either of the other three given Philly squads. They really should have beaten KC!

[Brian wolf]

The previous teams didnt have the luxury of pushing their QB in scrums to easy first downs. Athleticism is at a premium in todays games but defenses are more handcuffed. The 22' Eagles defense had a great season themselves but let weird factors affect their SB

Those factors? A loose grass field with Eagles fans crying out brinksmanship from former KC employee George Toma, who claimed that the League office as usual, disregarded his advice and knowledge.

The Eagle defense played bad, underestimating QB Mahomes, especially after halftime. He did seem gimpy from the bad ankle

The Chiefs have gotten away with offensive holding in two of their three SB games, with the Eagles, like the 49ers previously, on the wrong side of calls. The line played too bad against the Bucs, where holding calls didnt matter ...

The fumble by QB Hurts, where the ball slipped rather than been knocked out of his hands; an unfortunate kick of the ball allowed a pursuing defender to recover the ball, scoop-an-score.