1950s Philadelphia Eagles

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The full, exact calendar-decade book-ended by the franchise's 2nd and 3rd NFL Championship seasons. A total of six different head coaches within that time-span.

Of course the first thing I think about - and, I'm sure, most of us do - when hearing of the 1950 team is the notorious season opener. But I keep forgetting that in the five games that followed they not only won them all but the average, rounded off, score of each victory was 35-11! Destroying Curly's gritty, respectable Cards, 45-7, at Comiskey in Wk#2 and then, after a bye week, walloping the Rams, 56-20, are the major highlights along with finishing that 5-game-streak by pounding Washington, 35-3; and then beating them in their rematch, 33-0, two weeks later!

Eagles had a set-back at home vs Pittsburgh, 9-7, between both those triumphs, but they were 6-2 coming down the stretch and looking - I'd imagine to most at the time - like a team that could maybe put any truth to any theory, mostly by Neale himself, that Cleveland wasn't "real" football. Browns, and also the Giants, had the same record thus were tied atop the conference. And within those last four games was a rematch with Cleveland and two vs NYG!

But in their 9th game, Curly had spoiler ideas as his gang avenged their earlier loss to them, 14-10, dropping the Eagles to 6-3. And then the G-men, at the Polo Grounds, top Philly in as much of a defense-slug-fest as can possibly be, 7-3. Cleveland then wins in that alleged "deliberately" not throwing a single pass, bad weather affair, 13-7, to make it 6-5 now for the Birds; and then Philly loses yet again in another close defensive struggle in the finale to NYG (who HAD to win to get that tie-breaker).

Each loss a close one but a loss-is-a-loss and that's the way it went! Some here have opined that had there been no merger (and the 'butterfly-effects' that came with it; G-men upping their roster amongst), that Philly would have at least made a fourth-straight trip to the NFL Championship Game.


Another thing I forget is that from '52-thru-'54, under Jim Trimble, the Eagles posted three-straight FWIW winning seasons. "FWIW" in that each one was a 7-game winner. But, just the same, the very first of those consecutive trio of campaigns almost led them to a trip to the NFL Championship Game. Despite mediocrity and finishing things with a negative-point-differential (31-7 and 49-7 losses to NYG & Clev early on didn't help), they were actually tied with - again - Browns & Giants at 6-3 and going into the finale...they were 7-4 as the Browns were 8-3. G-men shot themselves in feet the last two weeks so it was just the two of them. Browns actually DID lose the finale, and to the Giants themselves, but so did Philly to a lesser Washington team so that was that.

In '54, they beat Cleveland in the opener, 28-10, en route to a hot 4-0 start! But that's as good as it got for they'd lose four of their next five with the third and fourth defeat being at NYG and Cleveland respectively to drop them to 5-4 thus, basically, out the race. Eagles wouldn't post another winning season until Buck Shaw's second season with them in '59 - and we KNOW what happened the FOLLOWING year!


Any further thoughts on what's already been written, or other things within this Eagles decade to discuss?

[Bryan]

Eagles had a set-back at home vs Pittsburgh, 9-7, between both those triumphs, but they were 6-2 coming down the stretch and looking - I'd imagine to most at the time - like a team that could maybe put any truth to any theory, mostly by Neale himself, that Cleveland wasn't "real" football. Browns, and also the Giants, had the same record thus were tied atop the conference.

The Eagles were nowhere near Cleveland's level at any point in the decade, IMO. They had some good individuals, but were at best an average team. I think the fluctuations of when Philly posted a decent record had more to do with playing in such a terrible division than any ascension of Eagle performance. They probably had better players at the start of the decade than at the end of the decade, which makes their 1960 title all that more remarkable. Stating the obvious, the Eagles are probably a .500 team at best without Van Brocklin. One guy who impressed me was Billy Ray Barnes from 1957 - 1959. He wasn't very big, and got a lot of his yards on his own, but he also always came up with a big play. By 1960 he was beat up and just a shell of himself, yet he was still a starting RB for an NFL champion.