Philadelphia Eagles Team History

In exchange for an entry fee of $2,500, the Bell Wray group was awarded the assets of the failed Yellow Jackets organization. Drawing inspiration from the insignia of the centerpiece of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, the National Recovery Act, Bell and Wray named the new franchise the Philadelphia Eagles. Neither the Eagles nor the NFL officially regard the two franchises as the same, citing the aforementioned period of dormancy. The Eagles simply inherited the NFL rights to the Philadelphia area. Also, almost no players from the 1931 Yellow Jackets ended up with the 1933 Eagles.

The 1940s would prove a tumultuous and ultimately triumphant decade for the young club. In 1940, the team moved from Philadelphia Municipal Stadium to Shibe Park. Lud Wray’s half-interest in the team was purchased by Art Rooney, who had just sold the Pittsburgh Steelers to Alexis Thompson. Soon thereafter, Bell/Rooney and Thompson swapped franchises, but not teams. Bell/Rooney’s entire Eagles’ corporate organization, including most of the players, moved to Pittsburgh The Steelers’ corporate name remained “Philadelphia Football Club, Inc.” until 1945 and Thompson’s Steelers moved to Philadelphia, leaving only the team nicknames in their original cities. Since NFL franchises are territorial rights distinct from individual corporate entities, the NFL does not consider this a franchise move and considers the current Philadelphia Eagles as a single unbroken entity from 1933.

After assuming ownership, Thompson promptly hired Greasy Neale as the team’s head coach. In its first years under Neale, the team continued to struggle. In 1943, when manpower shortages stemming from World War II made it impossible to fill the roster, the team temporarily merged with the Steelers to form a team popularly known as the “Steagles.” The merger, never intended as a permanent arrangement, was dissolved at the end of the 1943 season. This season saw the team’s first winning season in its 11-year history, with a finish of 5-4-1. In 1944, however, the Eagles finally experienced good fortune, as they made their finest draft pick to date: running back Steve Van Buren. At last, the team’s fortunes were about to change.

In 1971, the Eagles moved from Franklin Field to brand new Veterans Stadium. In its first season, the “Vet” was widely acclaimed as a triumph of ultra-modern sports engineering, a consensus that would be short-lived.

Veterans Stadium (informally called “The Vet”) was a multi-purpose stadium located at the northeast corner of Broad Street and Pattison Avenue, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. The listed seating capacities in 1971 were 56,371 for baseball.

Five months later, Smith agreed to let his nephew buy the Eagles. Lurie contacted Norman Braman, then-owner of the Eagles. Lurie bought the Philadelphia Eagles on May 6, 1994 from Braman for $195 million. Lurie and his mother, Nancy Lurie Marks of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts Philip Smith’s only daughter borrowed an estimated $190 million from the Bank of Boston to buy the Eagles.

The club is now estimated to be worth $1.164 billion, as valued in 2011 by Forbes.

Lincoln Financial Field is the home stadium of the National Football League’s Philadelphia Eagles and the Temple Owls football team of Temple University. It has a seating capacity of 69,176. It is located in South Philadelphia on Pattison Avenue between 11th and South Darien streets, also alongside I-95 as part of the South Philadelphia Sports Complex. Many locals refer to the stadium simply as “The Linc”.

The stadium opened on August 3, 2003, after two years of construction that began on May 7, 2001, and replaced Veterans Stadium as the Eagles’ home stadium. While its total capacity barely changed, the new stadium contains double the number of luxury and wheelchair-accessible seats, along with more modern services.

Super Bowl LII was the 52nd Super Bowl and the 48th modern-era National Football League (NFL) championship game to determine a champion for the 2017 season. The National Football Conference (NFC) champion Philadelphia Eagles defeated the American Football Conference (AFC) champion and defending Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, 41–33, to win their first Super Bowl, and denied the Patriots a record-tying sixth Super Bowl win; the loss tied the Patriots with the most Super Bowl losses with the Denver Broncos with five.

The game was held on February 4, 2018, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. It was the second Super Bowl in Minneapolis, which hosted Super Bowl XXVI in 1992. It was the sixth Super Bowl in a cold-weather city, and marked a return to the northernmost city to ever host the event.

Super Bowl LII was the first Super Bowl victory for the Eagles, who lost to the Patriots in Super Bowl XXXIX and to the Raiders in Super Bowl XV. The Patriots became the first team to appear in consecutive Super Bowls since the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowls XLVIII and XLIX.