The History of The Philideldia Eagles; Part 1 (1933-1939)

In 1931, Philadelphia's representative in the National Football League, the Frankford Yellow Jackets, went bankrupt and ceased operations midway through the season. After more than a year searching for a suitable replacement, the NFL awarded its dormant Philadelphia franchise to a syndicate headed by former University of Pennsylvania teammates Lud Wray and Bert Bell, in exchange for an entry fee of $2,500. 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.

The new team played its first game on October 15, 1933, against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City. They lost the game 56-0. The Eagles struggled over the course of their first decade, enduring repeated losing seasons.

For the most part, the Eagles' rosters were composed of former Penn, Temple and Villanova players who put in a few years before going on to other things.

In 1935, Bell, by that point the team's General Manager, proposed an annual college draft to equalize talent across the league. The draft was a revolutionary concept in professional sports. Having teams select players in inverse order of their finish in the standings, a practice still followed today, strove to increase fan interest by guaranteeing that even the worst teams would have the opportunity for annual infusions of the best college talent. Having finished last in the standings, the Eagles were "honored" with the first pick, an opportunity they squandered by selecting the University of Chicago's Heisman Trophy-winning back, Jay Berwanger. Berwanger, who had no interest in playing professional football, elected to go to medical school instead. Fortunately for the Eagles, they had managed by then to trade his rights to the Chicago Bears.

The Eagles' first major recruiting success would come in 1939, with the signing of Texas Christian's All-America quarterback, Davey O'Brien; O'Brien proceeded to shatter numerous existing single-season NFL passing records in his rookie season. That year, the Eagles participated in the first televised football game, against the Brooklyn Dodgers, at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn (as was to be expected of the 1930s Eagles, they lost the game, 23-14).