Highlights
- Reggie White recorded 124.0 of his 198.0 career sacks as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.
- Chuck Bednarik was one of the last true two-way players in the NFL and helped the Eagles to a pair of championships.
- Jason Kelce earned six First-Team All-Pro selections during his 13-year run in Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia Eagles have a rich history that dates back to 1933, and among the franchise’s best players of all time are one who played as far back as 1949 and one who played as recently as the 2023 season.
Philly had some great NFL teams before the Super Bowl era began. Those early units won three NFL titles in 1948, 1949, and 1960. Following the NFL-AFL merger, the Eagles developed a reputation as a good organization but one that could never seem to win the big one.
That all changed in 2017 when backup QB Nick Foles took the Birds on an improbable playoff run that culminated in a 41-33 Eagles victory over Tom Brady and the vaunted New England Patriots.
Now, the team is a perennial Super Bowl contender, but the fans will never forget all those incredible teams that fell just short.
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1 Reggie White
Reggie White only played about half his career for the Eagles, but even in a comparatively short amount of time, he was the best player in franchise history
Reggie White is one of the few players in the NFL who will appear on the top-five list for two franchises. While he only creeps into the Green Bay Packers rankings at No. 5, the “Minister of Defense” is No. 1 for the Eagles.
White was the No. 4 pick of the 1984 Supplemental NFL Draft out of Tennessee and finished second in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting behind Indianapolis Colts linebacker Duane Bickett. The next season, White made the first of his seven Pro Bowls and seven All-Pro teams with the Eagles.
In 1987 and 1988, White led the league with 21.0 and 18.0 sacks, respectively. He won Defensive Player of the Year in ’87 and finished second behind Chicago Bears linebacker Mike Singletary in ’88.
When White left Philly in 1993, he moved on with 794 tackles and 124.0 sacks. The defensive end finally won his Super Bowl in Green Bay, but he was never more dominant than when he, Jerome Brown, and Clyde Simmons patrolled the D-line for the Birds.
2 Chuck Bednarik
Philly is a city known for its toughness, and the linebacker nicknamed “Concrete Charlie” is one of the reasons for that
Let’s start with the fact that Chuck Bednarik, the No. 1 overall pick of the 1949 NFL Draft, had two of the coolest nicknames in football. He was known as “Concrete Charlie” for his hard-hitting ways and “The 60-Minute Man” for his ability to play linebacker, center, and punter while almost never coming off the field.
Those two monikers sum up Bednarik’s career perfectly and illustrate why he is second on the list of best players in Eagles history.
Bednarik was a terror on the field, busting up offensive players and wrestling defensive players into submission as one of the NFL’s last full-time two-way players, playing full-time linebacker and center as late as 1961.
He delivered one of the most famous (or infamous?) and vicious hits in NFL history, hitting New York Giants running back Frank Gifford so hard that the Hall of Fame back didn’t play football for a year and a half.
And in the 1960 NFL Championship Game — one of two Bednarik played in and won with the Eagles — the LB laid on Green Bay Packers fullback Jim Taylor so long that the clock ran out. That led to the rule that penalizes defensive players for keeping offensive players on the turf for too long.
Bednarik played all of his 14 NFL seasons in Philadelphia and made eight Pro Bowls and 10 All-Pro teams. And to think, he may have earned even more accolades if he hadn’t fought for the Air Force in World War II between high school in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and college at Penn.
3 Jason Kelce
Jason Kelce is one of the most beloved athletes in Philadelphia sports and the key cog in one of the most unstoppable plays in NFL history
The Eagles may be the only team in the NFL with two centers in not just the top five, but the top three of their all-time lists.
Just over 60 years after taking C/LB Chuck Bednarik No. 1 overall, the Eagles drafted a converted RB/LB who became a center at Cincinnati with pick No. 191 in the sixth round of the 2011 NFL Draft.
While Jason Kelce didn’t come in with the pedigree of Bednarik or many others, he still became one of the greatest Eagles in franchise history over his 13 years with the club.
After playing just two games due to a torn ACL in 2012 and missing four games with a sports hernia in 2014, Kelce didn’t miss a game the rest of his career. He made seven Pro Bowls in this time and earned six First-Team All-Pro selections.
Kelce won a Super Bowl in 2017 and played in another against his brother Travis and the Kansas City Chiefs five years later. He also was the key cog in what became one of the most unstoppable plays in NFL history.
The Eagles began running the “Tush Push” in 2022 when head coach Nick Sirianni and offensive coordinator Shane Steichen started lining up tight ends and running backs behind quarterback Jalen Hurts to push him basically over the top of Kelce in short-yardage situations.
Over the course of two years, Kelce, Hurts, and the Eagles converted on short-yardage situations and a rate of over 90%, making the “Brotherly Shove,” as they like to call it in Philly, one of the most successful recurring plays in league history.
4 Brian Dawkins
Safety Brian Dawkins was as loved by Eagles fans as he was feared by every other team
The best Eagles players in team history to this point have all toiled in the trenches. There are, though, a few Philly greats who played more skilled positions. The first of these is Hall of Fame safety Brian Dawkins.
In the early 2000s, Andy Reid’s Eagles basically became the Buffalo Bills of the NFC, making four straight NFC Championship games but only making (and losing) the Super Bowl once. Despite the rough results, those were excellent teams, and Dawkins was the unquestioned leader and best player on the defense.
Over 13 seasons in Philly, Dawkins recorded 914 tackles, 32 forced fumbles, and 34 interceptions. He also made seven of his nine Pro Bowls and earned all four of his first-team All-Pro nods with the Eagles.
5 Donovan McNabb
Donovan McNabb may have never won the big one, but getting to the final four as often as he did is still pretty impressive
If the 2000s Eagles were the Bills of the NFC, then Donovan McNabb was the Jim Kelly of the group. He was one of the best QBs of his day but is often underrated because of the lack of coming through in the biggest games.
Like Kelly, though, McNabb was excellent 99% of the time, and just getting to the end of the postseason four seasons in a row is an incredible accomplishment.
McNabb joined the Eagles when the team took him No. 2 overall in the 1999 NFL Draft out of Syracuse. The Illinois native started six games as a rookie but took over for good in his second year with one of his best seasons.
In 2000, McNabb took the NFL by storm, leading Philadelphia to an 11-5 record and finishing second in the MVP race to Marshall Faulk. The Eagles would go on to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Wild Card Round before falling to the New York Giants.
After that came the run of four NFC Championship Games, and then McNabb led his team to three more playoff appearances in the next five years.
Overall, McNabb made five Pro Bowls during his 11-year run with the Eagles and is the franchise’s all-time leading passer with 32,873 passing yards and 244 total TDs rushing and passing.
All stats courtesy of Pro Football Reference unless stated otherwise.
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