Philadelphia Eagles and the Greasy Years

Anyone who has watched the travails of the Philadelphia Eagles over the last couple of decades has to marvel at the team that just can't seem to win the big games. There have been many seasons in which it looked as though the team founded by Bert Bell in 1933 would somehow break through to win a Super Bowl and take their place as an elite NFL team, but even their appearances in the 1980 Super Bowl and the 2004 title game left them without the trophy the team's fans so crave. To find the true glory years of the Eagles franchise, it seems, you have to go all the way back to the 1940s and the days of the great Earle Neal Eagles teams.

The Draft Creation

The Eagles were best known for losing prior to hiring Neale. The problem that they chiefly had was one of building their new franchise from the bottom up. Their owner's idea, presented to the NFL in 1935, was to change the game in ways that even he could not have envisioned. For reasons related solely to his own team's future prospects, he talked the NFL into instituting a player draft of graduating college football stars. The teams with the worst record in the previous season would have the first choice of those college prospects. The idea caught hold and has continued to the present day. Each year, the nation's top collegiate athletes enter the NFL Draft in hopes of being selected for one of the NFL's franchise football teams. Though the Eagles would eventually achieve success from the system they proposed, their very first choice was a bust. In fact, they chose someone who had no intention of playing at the professional level, and who went to medical school instead.

Team-building from the ground up

The implementation of the college draft would have profound implications for the Philadelphia Eagles, however, with the arrival of Greasy Neale. Beginning in 1941, the Eagles made personnel choices that were far wiser than those made in the 1930s. It would ultimately be the quality of these players and the innovative coaching style of Neale that would build a team that would prove to be dominant throughout a good part of the 1940s. It took only three years for Neale's Eagles to rise to second place in their division. Three years after that, they had won their very first title in the division. His players, including such Eagles greats as Tommy Thompson and Steve van Buren, were instrumental in elevating the team from perennial league lapdog to championship contender. In fact, the end of the decade saw the Eagles play in three straight NFL title games - two of which they won. Those Championships, in 1948 and 1949, were a high water mark for the Eagles franchise, and made the Eagles the only team in NFL history to win consecutive shutout titles, as neither the Cardinals nor the Rams could score against the vaunted Eagles defense.

Defense and Legacy

When it came to defense, Neale's still live on to this day. It was he who originated the famous Eagle Defense that was adopted by other franchises around the League. That defense now lives on in the modern 4-3 formation that is still popular today. Neale's championship years with the Eagles, as well as his defensive innovations, helped him to earn a spot in the NFL Hall of Fame.