Next week’s NFC Championship Game will be another win for the Eagles.
It’s been just over a century since the 1924 Frankford Yellow Jackets — Philadelphia’s first Pro Football Team — began to prepare for its first NFL season. The Yellow Jackets had impressively played their way into the NFL after absorbing the Philadelphia City Championship Team in 1922. From the very beginning — Frankford was a success on the gridiron.
Twenty-four years later, Eagles running back Steve Van Buren braved a blizzard to get to Shibe Park on Lehigh Avenue for the 1948 NFL Championship Game — rushing for 98 yards and plunging in from five yards out through a Philadelphia nor’easter for the game’s only score. On Sunday, Saquon Barkley ran through swirling snow in South Philadelphia for 205 yards and two touchdowns to carry the Eagles to their second NFC Championship Game in three years and the third in seven years.
All that can stop the Eagles now — the best team in the NFC and perhaps the entire NFL — from reaching yet another appearance in the Super Bowl — is the Washington Commanders.
The Commanders have impressively dispensed with the Buccaneers and the Lions, but coming to Lincoln Financial Field, they will face the NFC’s true top team on Sunday.
Only six rookie quarterbacks in the modern era have advanced to a Conference Championship Game — the most recent being Brock Purdy, who left Philadelphia injured in the 2023 NFC Championship Game. Of those six rookie quarterbacks (including former Eagles quarterback Mark Sanchez when he was a rookie with the Jets in 2009), none have advanced to the Super Bowl.
The 11–2–1 Frankford Yellow Jackets of 1924 did not win an NFL Championship. Like the 2022–2023 Philadelphia Eagles — both teams featured incredible rushing attacks. More importantly, they were both precursors for formidable teams to succeed them (the 1926 Champion Frankford Yellow Jackets and the 2024–2025 Philadelphia Eagles).
And what of those 2022–2023 Philadelphia Eagles who may well have been the warmup act for what we are seeing now? They didn’t have a running back called Saquon Barkley — who broke the Eagles’ post-season game rushing record on Sunday.
That record was previously held by Steve Van Buren — who set him in the 1949 NFL Championship Game — against the Los Angeles Rams.
PHOTO: FOX NFL/TW/X
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