The Philadelphia Eagles entered 2024 for their 92nd season of competition in the National Football League. Some teams have come while others have gone, but the City of Brotherly Love has retained an NFL franchise for almost a century. Sure, the 627-638-27 regular season record could be better, and so could the 25-26 playoff record and 1-3 mark in Super Bowl appearances. However, despite the sub-.500 all-time mark, the Philadelphia Eagles are still one of the more respected franchises in the NFL landscape.
Football at Polo Ground & Yankee Stadium?
When the Eagles and Giants met for the first time in 1933, the NFL venue was vastly different than today’s version of the National Football League. The site was the legendary Polo Grounds, which was used as a baseball field for most of the year. The Polo Grounds served as the home for the Giants from 1921 when the team was known as the “New York Brickley Giants” of the American Professional Football Association.
The team earned its name from the team’s head coach, Charles Brickley. The NY-B Giants folded in 1923 and the owner decided against joining the growing NFL in 1925. Instead, owner Billy Gibson recommended Tim Mara to NFL President Joseph Carr as a potential franchisee. Mara brought the New York Giants to the NFL in 1925 despite really having no connection to the previous NY football franchise.
Fast forward eight years, the New York Giants football franchise had improved from the NY-B Giants days. New York (11-1-1) claimed the 1927 NFL Championship over the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on 12/11/1927. I’ll wait while you read that sentence again and try to process that bit of sports history. Go ahead and stun your friends with that one, I won’t be mad!
The New York Giants (9-5) football team also claimed the 1934 NFL Championship with a 30-13 win over the Chicago Bears (13-1). The Giants avenged a 23-21 loss in the 1933 NFL Title game to the Bears.
Philadelphia Yellow Jackets
Here’s another fun fact, Philadelphia’s team at the time was the Frankfort Yellow Jackets. They competed at the Frankford Stadium on the corner of Frankford Ave & Devereaux Ave. until a fire destroyed the venue in 1931.
Philly’s first NFL franchise claimed the 1926 NFL Championship following a 24-0 win over the Providence Steam Roller on 12/11/1926 to earn the best record in the NFL. The Philadelphia Quakers, the champion of the rival American Football League, was also Philly-based that season. The Yellow Jackets declined an invitation to an interleague championship game. Instead, the Quakers lost to the NY Giants, 31-0 in their final contest of the 1926 season.
The Philadelphia Yellow Jackets played eight total seasons between 1924 and 1931. The team was 70-45-15. The head coach of the 1926 squad, Guy Chamberlin, was 27-8-2 in his only two seasons. Chamberlin left the Eagles to become the bench boss for the Chicago Cardinals following that 1926 NFL title. That lone season in Chicago was his final season as an NFL head coach following a 3-7-1 record.
The Eagles Have Landed
Several years later in 1933, the Philadelphia Yellow Jackets were purchased by Bert Bell and Lid Wray for $2,500. The value falls somewhere in the range of $60,000 in current-day funds when adjusted for inflation.
On October 15, 1933, the Eagles played their first official contest in the NFL against the New York Giants (2-2). New York head coach Steve Owen struggled to get his team going in the league’s first month with alternative wins and losses to open the campaign. Meanwhile, Philadelphia had yet to play a game in the 1933 NFL season. You can probably get how this matchup went, eh?
The New York Football Giants destroyed the expansion Philadelphia Eagles, 56-0, in front of 18,000 fans at the Polo Grounds. New York scored 8 unanswered touchdowns, while Philly only managed 108 yards in total offense on the day. Giants halfback Hap Moran was unstoppable with 3 catches for 114 yards and a TD catch.
The win started New York on a roll as they finished the 1933 season at 9-1 over the last 10 games with their only loss coming to the reigning NFL champion Bears. The Giants finished the regular season with a 20-14 win over Philly before losing the 1933 NFL Title game to Chicago.
It would be a few weeks before Philadelphia earned their first NFL win with a 6-0 road victory over the Cincinnati Reds on 11/05/1933. The Birds finished their inaugural season with a 3-5-1 record. It would be almost a decade before the Eagles gained NFL relevancy when the Philadelphia Eagles/Pittsburgh Steelers combined to form the “Steagles” in 1943 for the franchise’s first winning season at 5-4-1.
Eagles legendary running back Steve Van Buren arrived in 1944 and changed the course of football history in Philadelphia. Under the NFL Hall of Fame QB, the Eagles surged to a 58-13 record including NFL Championship wins in 1948 and 1949.
The Philadelphia Eagles (3-2) and the New York Giants (2-4) will meet for the 184th time in franchise history this Sunday, 10/20/2024, at Lincoln Financial Field. The Birds hold a slight all-time advantage in the series 93-88-2 including a 3-2 postseason record versus New York. The Eagles had won the last three postseason meetings between the two squads.
Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-Imagn Images
