Storming the NFL

This is the story of the Philadelphia Eagles' ascendancy from an NFL backwater to three successive championship games, winning two of them in the years 1947 to 1949. Storming the NFL fills a critical void in published works on the NFL and pro football’s legendary championship teams. Adding some drama to the triad of championship games is that they were played in horrendous weather— ice in Chicago, rain and mud in Los Angeles, and a blizzard in Philadelphia (In fact, so bad were conditions for the Philly game that, thinking the game would be postponed, star running back Steve Van Buren went back to sleep the morning of the game before receiving a frantic phone call from head coach “Greasy” Neale). No NFL championship before or since has been played in such miserable conditions.

In addition to Van Buren, the Eagles boasted a squad spiked with future Hall of Famers, among them “Concrete” Chuck Bednarik, end Pete Pihos, and coach Earle "Greasy" Neale himself. It was Neale who had designed and developed the innovative “Eagle Defense” to counter the wildly successful T Formation offense of “Papa Bear” George Halas and his “Monsters of the Midway” that earned Neale lasting fame. It was that great defense that led the Eagles to holding the opposition scoreless in two consecutive championship games— a feat that has yet to be duplicated in modern NFL history.